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Funding not a problem, spending is the problem!
I read that Governor Granholm was recently in Rochester meeting with area school superintendents trying to find a funding solution. That she purposely chose Rochester because it is Republican Mike Bishop's district. What the Oakland Press omitted to mention was that it is not a funding problem nor has it ever been a funding problem. Michigan schools have always been well funded. They may be disproportionately funded because some districts have more political clot than others. Some districts have chosen to spend money in Lansing to get higher per student funds in an effort to keeps their bloated budgets. The MEA, the most powerful lobby in Lansing, helps fund many of the politician's campaigns who are making decisions.
Like I said, it is not a funding problem, it is and always has been a spending problem.
We have too many school districts in Michigan, over 500 separate districts. Compare to a bankrupt California which has less than 200 districts, we have almost as much waste in Michigan school districts as there is in Washington, D.C.
Wise and intelligent spending is the answer along with consolidation of school districts. Unfortunately that is not on the Governor's agenda, raising taxes is.
Like I said, it is not a funding problem, it is and always has been a spending problem.
We have too many school districts in Michigan, over 500 separate districts. Compare to a bankrupt California which has less than 200 districts, we have almost as much waste in Michigan school districts as there is in Washington, D.C.
Wise and intelligent spending is the answer along with consolidation of school districts. Unfortunately that is not on the Governor's agenda, raising taxes is.
posted by Brian J Perks at
11:19 AM
1 Comments:
So, why does Michigan have ~500 School Districts? Because we want to keep them close, and under control so they don't spend too much. We know that bigger just means more expensive. We know that government can't do it anyway, even if it did do it the best in the world for a century and a half. We also knew that some districts couldn't afford a good job so we reformed school funding and located it all in Lansing. And we had to make compromises between those districts who spent a lot of money, had great facilities, and good test scores by means of either fiscal willingness by their residents or by fortunate circumstances and the poor districts. Some of them spent only half of what the top districts did, either because their residents could not afford it or they did not have a big spender company who could not vote, or they just didn't care about education. Whatever the reason(s), they didn't spend, didn't have great facilities, and had lower priced teachers. And, generally, one gets what one pays for.
Like all employees, teachers like to have better facilities, better pay, better fringes, and meaningful jobs. Strangely, they do not like people saying they are overpaid, when they have had to jump through a series of hoops called "additional education," motivating the unmotivated, undefined dangers on the job, and still no respect. The worker who does not know why teachers with years of education should be paid more than he. The business man who raises his price every so often, cannot understand how schools could cost more. The consumer who expects to pay more at the market and at the gas station, not to mention the other stores, somehow expects the price of government services to go down and in a time of increasing demand for basic survival services by the unfortunate to have it all done by more with less. Maybe if we could vote on food prices, we'd roll back the price of steak. Maybe regular gas could be voted back to a more affordable range. We could cut back. Maybe only 11 years to a diploma. Just skip Junior High/Middle School -- no one learns much anyway. Didn't like Math, and it never supports my ideas, so just cut it. Naturally, keep, even expand sports, and easy classes. After all, it isn't really the skills that are sought when employers advertize for a "high school grad," but rather that decorative award signed by the principal and school board. Like some parents seem to believe, we could save even more by cutting out all that time testing. We could just award the certificate based on "seat time." Although seat time on the bench won't count. Spend more time on sports -- a lot of money to be made there. Cut the arts and music -- no money or jobs there. With a little more work we could have an educational system the scourge of any impoverished third world state.
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