Home of Today's Common Sense

Submitted 5/7/2004
I just read the Dan McNeely column entitled “State Senator makes case for income tax” with disgust at how our “elected professional rulers” choose to not deal with the real issues.
The impression is conveyed that unlimited amounts of tax money will make our children well educated and productive. This is patently false and is demonstrated by the fact that the Washington, D.C. schools where the highest per child spending occurs, has one of the worst education results in the nation.
The issue is not how much is spent; it is how it is spent. Money should be spent primarily and in order of importance on teachers, books, supplies, training teachers, and classrooms. After you have adequately funded those things then if there is money left (the operable word is if) fund things like minimal supervision and administration.
I had the privilege yesterday, of visiting a place where education and moral guidance goes on, hand in hand, The Guadalupe Regional Middle School of Brownsville. The school is a free Catholic school funded entirely by contributions. The school recently doubled its enrollment from 27 to 57 students and expects another 30 in September. An amazing 32 students are on the A or B honor roll. The school has devoted teachers and only a modest administration that does not get in the way of learning. I met several students who were not from well to do homes but just like many I met at other Middle Schools. They were happy, bright and articulate and demonstrated a really uplifting spirit of optimism.
What Guadalupe didn’t have, is an expensive administrative staff to keep track of the multitude of federal and state mandates that are in fact getting in the way of learning instead of fostering it.
I contend that good education is more dependent on the personal involvement of the community it is a part of, rather than the amounts of money.
I also contend that the debate surrounding education is less about educating our children and preparing them for a productive life and more about who controls how the process will operate, how and where the money will be spent and possibly most importantly, what version of the truth will be taught at the schools.
Our “elected professional rulers” want to throw money at a situation to show they really care and blame some other level of administration for the failures that continue.
In the old days when a town started the community found a schoolmarm and founded a school. The community was responsible! The community has abdicated this responsibility to the state and federal rulers who tell us how and what must be taught to our children, in order to extort funding from other communities for their own purposes.
The debate portends that the end of unlimited tax funds is at hand. We need to re-evaluate what we are spending, to who and what we must give up in order to get the money.
An income tax is not the answer; the states without one are growing fast economically, those that do have one are being stifled.