By Mark Thornton
Anytime you hear a so-called education proponent or school official say these four words — “It’s for the children” — grab your wallet and run. Fast. Hind-end first, so they can’t pick your pocket on the way out.
That tired old line gets pulled out any time they’re lobbying for more funding, and it’s almost always bellowed or shrieked in front of TV cameras from the steps of the Capitol as a crowd, whipped into a wide-eyed frenzy, declares impending failure for all school children if they don’t get $30 million more. My toes curl every time this oh-so-predictable scenario gets repeated.
It’s just like when someone in sports, entertainment or business says, “It’s not about the money.”
Another tired old line comes to mind: Don’t tinkle on my loafers and tell me it’s raining.
It’s ALWAYS about the money.
And it’s NEVER about the children.
I’d guess that 90 percent of the people at these organized rallies have a heightened self-interest in schools getting “adequately” funded, either because they’re trying to protect their own jobs or because of their own deficiencies as parents. They expect schools to do things that they can’t or won’t do for their own children. So we, the taxpayers, have to do the sacrificing so they don’t have to. Their tactics always work, too, because no politician dares to risk not funding something that’s “FOR THE CHILDREN!”
Education already gets more than 60 percent of the state’s budget. Yet lawmakers who don’t rubber-stamp funding increases are accused of “NOT CARING ABOUT CHILDREN!” ... and a soundbite-driven public buys it.
The House has already agreed, 119-1, to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. And in this, an election year, you can bet your campaign donation that the Senate will too, although not by as overwhelming a majority and not without at least some symbolic debate.
If the goal of the activists was simply “for the children,” then one topic would enter the fray first: consolidation. Why not look as hard at ways to save money as to get money, and ways to improve education that don’t cost money? That would be a logical first step, it would seem. You can bet that topic would be dismissed quicker than a teacher who makes a sexual advance at a student (Oops, I forgot ... those teachers just get shuffled, not dismissed. Strange, huh, considering that it’s all about what’s best for the children.)
The state has 82 counties and 152 school districts. Many of those separate school districts have no more than a couple hundred students, yet those tiny districts have their own superintendent, staff and facilities that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands dollars apiece. Cut out the duplication in these dueling districts, and it would save millions.
They won’t even talk about it though. If they’re backed into a corner, they sing that old “for the children” chorus. It insults our intelligence.
Only people who are interested in preserving their own power and their own livelihoods are against at least studying or talking about consolidation. One thing is certain: The children have nothing to do with their concerns.
Maybe the full funding of education will be a good thing. When MAEP does get fully funded — and it will — there will be no more excuses if test scores and our state’s standing don’t improve.
But you can bet that some advocacy group or lobbyist is already formulating an excuse for why there were no improvements. And why even MORE money is needed.
Mark Thornton is editor/publisher of The Star-Herald.
