By Charlie Meyer:
YES
I'm old enough to have parents from the Great Depression, rolling my eyes to oft-told stories such as: “We walked ten miles to school, each way, through four feet of snow, with your Aunt Peggy on my back...yada yada yada.” I couldn't get away with such blarney with my son. So much for: “Age and Treachery Beats Youth and Skill Every Time.” My elementary school was built almost a century ago by Polish immigrants in an ethnic neighborhood of Schenectady, New York; the third parish school building, having outgrown the first two in very short order. Immigrants of that day were firm believers in education, with their prayers, wallets, and sweat. Being a wise guy, even back then, I often wondered if some of the nuns had been there since the joint opened, but certainly not out loud. We didn't have computers, given that classroom technology back then basically stopped at chalk. The asphalt urban playground would become the parish parking lot on Sundays. Researching t! his column involved a phone call to the parish convent. The sister asked me if I remembered a certain elementary phrase in Polish, and she put me on the spot, as if I was seven all over again! A long way from pepper-spraying rent-a-cops protecting that brand new high school track here from teen exuberance.
Times change in the better part of fifty years, and so have our schools. As the late bug-eyed comedy actor Marty Feldman said in Mel Brooks' “Young Frankenstein”: “My Grandfather used to work for your Grandfather, but the rates have gone up.” Those teaching nuns grew fewer, and “lay” teachers began to fill the teaching ranks in parochial schools. They cost far more than nuns, who lived like communal socialists on a Kibbutz, but still less than your public school teacher. Public school teachers had unions, because we often forgot teachers had lives outside of the schoolhouse, unlike Sister Mary Penguin, who was working and doing without in anticipation of that Great Reward in eternity. The problem is, too many of us forgot the many years of college and work our educators invested in their profession and our own kids. Hey! It's not as if they were “hard working entrepreneurs” hawking cheap Chinese stuff on the Internet, schlepping that “legit 4 Ponzi scheme called health insurance, or, in what one of their own physicians let slip, the “Health Mangling Organization”; all the much-ballyhooed “driving force” allegedly creating jobs (without adequate health insurance in too many cases) throughout this country.
Yeah, right.
Way too many folks of my generation, myself included, figured that after Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, we'd skip those challenging math and science courses. Then the “free marketeers” fed us the snake oil of getting folks in India and Red China to wrestle with math and the sciences for us “on the cheap.” So much for the plan to relax on our own sunny eBay Power Seller island funded by a 401k from Bernie Madoff. Set the blender on “stun.” Meanwhile, we're losing the science and innovation race.
Fortunately, not everyone goofed off in school. What is it with Yourztruly's ceaseless bragging about Doc Gustafson, my veterinarian, many of you may wonder? Doc took, mastered, and applied all those “hard” science courses I couldn't have bothered with, plus many more I couldn't begin to pronounce.
Arcane facts about the Hegelian Dialectic, the Treaty of Brest-Litvosk, or clever accelerated depreciation techniques aren't any help to a seriously infirm, but much-loved Basset Hound. We need to encourage our kids to master the hard stuff, even if many of us didn't. We need more families that know the value of education.
As a parent, it certainly must have sounded silly to my son encouraging him to take those challenging math and science courses I skipped back then. To students today, many of my generation sluffed off. Mea Culpa. Have we condemned our nation to be nothing more than a “nation of shopkeepers?” A renewed pursuit of educational excellence is needed to extract America from the morass of mediocrity. That's not cheap. My generation's moment has all but passed; it's up to you, Kiddies.
Sorry. Remember, AARP compadres, they'll be choosing our nursing homes. Ante up.
Schools Superintendent Skip Hackworth left no stone unturned years ago trying to sell a schools modernization bond issue to a shortsighted public a couple of times. Failing to realize the need and the fleeting availability of state school construction financing leaves us with
education levy “band-aid” to get by on. Good schools attract needed new businesses and employers, despite those who couldn't see beyond their own shortsighted pocketbooks. We can't ALL be retired, or semi-retired. I have a folded flag in a smoke and fire hose water blemished wood display case that noted my retirement, and the AARP loves my mail box, too. Nostalgic memories of school well into the last century just doesn't cut it in this day and age. The minimalist government mob cites neighboring rural counties' low tax rates. Well, the state just had to take over yet another failing school system in one of those rural, Libertarian, rustic Shangri Las. Not exactly a community pride “bell ringer.” Face it, you get what you pay for. Our parents probably didn't like the expense of supporting our education, but saw the value in it. It's our turn. We can't afford to drop the educational ball.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. I'm counting on succeeding generations to do well in school, as they're gonna be paying for this old sailor's pension. We need to continue to invest in and improve our schools. Do well in school, kids. Please! Let's give them the tools to succeed. Our nation is counting on it.
By Stephen Smoot:
MAYBE
In spring of 2008, Mineral County voters rejected a school levy measure. This bipartisan backed effort would have netted millions from taxpayers plus matching funds from the West Virginia School Building Association. Supporters described a long list of projects, including relief for the overcrowding at Keyser Primary Middle School (where I happen to have a child.) Certainly the school system and the students could have used this money and a school levy represented the easiest way to obtain it. A school levy would have cost each individual taxpayer a pittance by itself. However when Mineral County voters went to the polls they rejected it. The people told the county that they had been taxed enough already.
Those that backed the measure pleaded with the voters, saying “it’s for the children.” Usually when someone is saying that a change of policy is “for the children,” they are about to take some money or some freedom. In this case the children do need the money, but is a levy the only way to improve the school system’s revenue flow?
Part of the problem lies outside of the control of the county school board. State policy implemented through the School Building Association favors districts that have plans to consolidate schools in some fashion. Amazingly enough the school system is one of the few areas where government tries to increase efficiency, but this vision created in Charleston ignores rural realities. Counties such as Preston get little money for maintenance because they refuse to consolidate any further. Charleston based politicians do not get the concept of a broad rural area with a small student population. One of the supporters of the school levy mentioned the problem of long bus rides. Consolidation creates bus rides that for some approach a total of three hours per day. The state has pursued this bad policy for years. As a result, districts like Preston have schools literally collapsing around the students due to the almost ruthless, anti-local policies of the SBA.
As far as local funding is concerned, the entire county needs to rethink the connection between development and revenue. A few in the county want to follow a very selective policy in terms of what business comes in and where it locates. A few radical individuals advocate zoning laws that would outlaw certain businesses locating in certain areas. They claim that this makes sense in Fairfax County, Virginia so why not Mineral? This county has a difficult time attracting the interest of investors already without severe restrictions on investment. What does zoning have to do with school levies? As more property gets developed in Mineral County, additional revenues from taxes go into the school system. Attracting manufacturing, windmills or some other development adds more money every year to the school budget. In other words, supporting for a pro-business agenda, including opposition to zoning laws, equals strong support for schools and students. Bringing in more busines! s, wherever it wants to locate in the county, is good for the children and does not take away your money or freedom. We also provide opportunities for those same children to stay in this county and raise their families here. Zoning kills development by trying to send it to places where the elite think it should go, not to where it would naturally locate.
Unfortunately the Mineral County School Board may have shot itself in the foot recently when it voted in a non binding resolution to oppose windmill construction. Developing ridge property in Mineral County with windmills will pour a great deal more money into the schools.
Voting against windmills appears the same to many taxpayers as simply coming out and saying “we don’t need the money.”
Mineral County has a stagnant population and a low business growth rate. As the school system and other services seek to maintain themselves in the fast paced 21st century, they will need more and more money. If the county does not embrace an aggressively pro-growth agenda, those services will demand more money from a smaller tax base.
School levies by themselves cost taxpayers very little on an individual level, but when added to other little tax raises here and there it all adds up to a lot. Democrats in the State Legislature even now want to raise your gasoline taxes even though they know that many of you are either out of work or struggling to get by. It all adds up and when voters get a chance to say no, they do so.
Whether or not I approve of the school levy personally, the voters have the last say and they have repeatedly rejected it. Mineral County can do better than simply putting its hand out again to the taxpaying voter. It is time for the county leadership to push aside objections to free market based development. The people need jobs and the schools need revenue. State leaders and legislators need to give local leaders more latitude to make decisions about keeping small schools. What in Charleston looks inefficient makes sense when you look at it from the point of view of rural counties.
Prosperity and development equal well funded schools. Let’s work hard to create a strong development atmosphere before we debate regulating it. Our schools badly need the money and Mineral County voters have been taxed enough already.
