The Crisis Clears Up
March 17, 2006
When you aim at the “portland parent,” it is inevitable that some discussion will turn to the Portland School District. Even though many of you may not be directly affected by the public school crisis, whether you have kids in private schools or no kids in any schools, this is an extremely important problem.
Let’s stop blaming Measure 5 and related property-tax measures for the continued school budget problem. In the almost ten years since Measure 5 was passed, the incredibly big brains of our governors, senators and representatives, mayors, city commissioners and the school board has had plenty of chances to compensate. And yet our problem persists. Even when we instituted the Multnomah County Income Tax to help the schools– it was obvious that it was a band-aid.
I don’t think that the right people are making our schools a priority.
At a recent meeting, both of the governors of Washington and Oregon agreed that schools are the key to success and that “the Pacific Northwest cannot compete in the world economy without dramatically improving schools and universities.” (The Oregonian, March 17, B1). Not only do excellent schools directly lead to excellent employees (and business owners), but excellent schools will draw other people to the area.
With the policies set into place by the Bush administration, it is obvious that over the next ten to twenty years, we need to give our kids the best possible advantages for competition; like it or not, we are in competition for money, and all of the advantages are going to people who already have it. We will pass this competition to our children, and to do it without giving them every opportunity we can would be criminal. We need to take care of our public schools at the local level; state, county and city, because we want Oregon to flourish.
And yet, school funding continues to falter. We are faced with a huge shortfall next year- 57 Million Dollars. Even if someone won the Powerball and handed a big check to Vicki Phelps, it would only help for one year. In the long term, the district plans to “ask the legislature for more money.” There’s a source we can rely on. We need to build a supporting structure beneath the school system so that we can improve it and help our kids. We need a continuing plan. We had three years of the Multnomah Income Tax to prepare for this– where did that planning go?
You can try to balance the school budget based on current assumptions. I tried, and was able only to recover about ten million by trimming “unessential” costs like travel. I’m sure you would disagree with my choices. Looking at the selections, one thing is obvious — we need revolutionary thinking, because we’re cutting down to the meat of our education system.
And the meat won’t grow back.
We need to stop debating about the tram and how the city will fund it. We can’t afford it– we must make our children a priority. We need to take a stronger stance on this. Our kids’ futures depend on it.
- Posted in : Our Schools
- Author :russ
Comments
comments closed