Public education should be funded
I was raised in the southern part of Washington County in an area that has been left behind by the so-called energy revolution and the digital economy.
The area is full of good-hearted people who work in the mines, machine shops, farms and other smaller businesses that dot the area. Or they travel long distances for better-paying jobs. One result of this is that the schools have not been able to keep up with the rapid changes in the economy nearly as well as those in more affluent areas.
This has nothing to do with people being lazy or ignorant. But it does have to do with economic opportunity and exposure to other ideas.
To keep it simple, there is something very wrong when two children have totally different opportunities for success based purely on where they were born. The fact that public schools in wealthy areas are able to attract better teachers through higher salaries, to have better facilities and better equipment creates a big problem. And so it goes that kids in less affluent areas are already at a competitive disadvantage from the day they start school. This shouldn’t have anything to do with their parents. It has to do with kids. The least the government can do is give every kid the same fighting chance to succeed in life. It will never be equal, but certain playing fields should be level.
The system of financing schools based on local real-estate taxes is patently unfair. I would also argue that it makes poor economic sense by effectively discriminating against a whole set of kids. The best way to reduce crime, to spend less on welfare and prisons is not to discriminate, but to give them the same economic opportunities to succeed in life.
I also believe that the constant chatter that local control of schools is the best way to manage them is inherently flawed. There are very few areas in our society where something so important is turned over to local control to such a large extent.
It’s a beautiful thing if the rich want to spend extra on their children, but they should at least allow the public school system to offer the same high level of education to all kids.
Lars Lange
Marianna