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Local Pagosa Springs News
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| OPINION: A Modest School Funding Proposal |
| Cynda Green | 3/1/10 |
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Last week I happily registered to vote in Archuleta County. Good riddance, California. I prefer to watch your slide into the sink hole of debt you so righteously created and refuse to correct from the sidelines. But, “as goes California, so goes the country”. So Colorado, take notice before it’s too late for you.
As a new voter here, I will vote “no” on any tax increase to “save the school budget”.
Although my daughter, now 22 years old, was not educated in Archuleta County, I’ve been following the Daily Post’s articles by Bill Hudson and Glenn Walsh on this subject, so I feel adequately informed to comment on the current situation facing the school district.
It is very true, as pointed out in the Daily Post’s articles, that the best school districts add value to homes. In San Diego County, I estimate the added value to be $100,000 for a home in an excellent school district as opposed to a like property in a mediocre district. I non-voluntarily opted for the lower-priced home in the mediocre school district.
 My daughter’s high school, replete with lopsided floors and leaking ceilings, is better known for Heisman Trophy winner and current New Orleans Saint Reggie Bush than for its academics.
Yet, somehow, my daughter managed to get into the four-year Structural Engineering B.S. program at UC San Diego, graduate, and land a job in San Diego in the ship design department of NASSCO. She loves her job and is well-compensated for it — making more money at age 22 than I ever did.
I could say that she accomplished this all on her own, but I don’t believe that. I believe that it was my involvement in her elementary and middle school education more so than the test scores of her schools that set her on the path to academic achievement and to ultimately become an independent, happy adult.
Volunteering in the classroom in elementary school was crucial. Prior to the standardized test that determined eligibility for the GATE program, my daughter’s teacher informed me that she was not GATE material. My daughter’s test scores proved that teacher very wrong; she was the sole qualifier for GATE in that classroom. Could it be because the teacher was disengaged from her students?
One elementary school teacher had a habit of pawning off her work on me when I volunteered. For a few weeks I graded the spelling tests and other more subjective assignments. Then it dawned on me that I probably knew more about these students’ abilities than the teacher did, because I was the one looking at and examining their work. I made her do her job, the one she was being compensated for handsomely.
But, when the teacher graded the spelling tests, she ignored that my daughter was lazy and did not dot her i’s or cross her t’s. How can that be considered acceptable? So, once again, I had to have a little talk with the teacher in an attempt to improve my daughter’s educational experience at a school with mediocre test scores, and, apparently, mediocre teachers.
I realize not every family has the luxury to be able to volunteer in the classroom. But staying on top of homework and tests that come home, calling the teacher with every question and concern, and going to every K-12 parent-teacher conference and open house is enough to successfully advocate for your child’s education.
Sadly, at my daughter’s high school, only 10 percent of parents went to the conferences, and that 10 percent represented the parents of the top 10 percent students. My experience is that a teacher pays much more attention to a student with a proactive parent.
My whole point in relating the above experiences with my daughter’s education is that success at school first depends on the home environment. The best teacher in the world may not be able to erase a home environment where, for whatever reason, education is not valued.
Next, the school must be willing and able to academically challenge each student, no matter what their learning ability is, and to offer extra-curricular activities that build their self-confidence and love of competition. In my daughter’s case, I believe her involvement in her school’s show choir, musical theatre, competitive speech team and cross country was just as important as her academic pursuits to successfully making her own way in the intimidating world we live in.
How does this relate to the school funding shortfall confronting Archuleta County?
In Part One of his series about the budget shortfall, Glenn Walsh wrote, “(District Superintendent) DeVoti pictured the shrinking pie chart for the audience: ’75 percent of our budget is allocated for salaries and benefits. That’s where our moneys go. We are trying to stay away from staff, but it will get to that point, and this is not good for kids — there is no doubt about it — to cut $1.3 million out of the budget. We will become lean, and then we’ll go beyond lean, and do things that are not good for our educational system.’”
When I read that, I was shocked. If I understand correctly, only 25 percent of the budget goes to everything else necessary for education — the physical plant, transportation, textbooks and other materials for example.
Since the educational infrastructure would not exist without the students, it is sad that the students are, in a sense, privy to just 25 percent of the total budget.
But this fact is in line with DeVoti’s preferred recommendations for closing the budget gap: increase taxes on the residents, close the Intermediate school, or go to a four-day school week. He believes these avenues to closing the budget are less detrimental than cutting staff or staff taking a voluntary and temporary pay/benefit cut.
I disagree.
Mr. Hudson, in his recent article series, has presented a convincing argument that more money does not make for better schools.
Closing the Intermediate school and all that it stands for in the community, is not worth the small amount of money it would save.
As a person who has worked many years, as an adult, a 4/10 work week for the San Diego County Assessor, I can tell you that the primary beneficiary of a four-day school week would be the staff, not the students’ educational opportunity. It’s too long of a day for optimal learning, and, as Mr. Walsh has previously stated, will result in lower quality education. That is a fact.
As I have previously discussed, cutting back or eliminating extra-curricular activities, which come out of the 25 percent piece of Mr. DeVoti’s pie, is also most detrimental to the students, once again leaving that 75 percent of the pie, representing salaries and benefits, unscathed.
Those employed in Pagosa’s private sector have taken a huge economic hit in this recession, yet those employed by the state, county and town government feel that they are entitled to immunity to what ails the rest of the community — and the entire country.
This is exactly the attitude that California has that has sent them head first into their very own man-made sinkhole, leaving them to beg for, and be beholden to, a federal government bailout consisting of funny money.
How wonderful it would be if Mr. DeVoti and his staff would reach out to the hurting private sector of our community and willingly sacrifice a part of their 75 percent of the pie. This would certainly pull the community together in their support for each other and in their desire to see our schools and community prosper.
And what a wonderful example they would be, for every other publicly funded organization. |
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