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Safe, For Now
8/5/08 08:02In the wake of California's continuing fiscal cock-up, Our Governator has again cut education funding across the board. In San Francisco alone we are looking at the firing of over five hundred certificated teachers--it's gone way past the point where there are non-mandated programs or aides or fluffy bunnies to fire. So Mayor Newsom and the Board of Supervisors, after a good deal of shuffling around, arranged to dip into the city's Rainy Day fund and cover the shortfall.
This year, anyway.
And there's a parcel tax initiative on the ballot in June, raising money to attract, retain, and provide professional development for, teachers. (Vote Yes on A!) If it passes--by no means a certain thing--that will help, for a while.
But good fucking God. What is up with us, that funding for education has to be a patchwork of last-ditch emergency measures? Why do we regard education with such suspicion? It may be reasonable for a kid to regard school as an interruption of liberty, but by the time you're twenty-five you should have gotten over it. If half the energy that goes into hand-wringing and frothing at the mouth about Why Johnny Can't Read and Why Our Teachers Aren't Accountable was expended in actually doing something to fund education, we'd have a literate populace that might even wind up Smarter than a Fifth Grader.
This year, anyway.
And there's a parcel tax initiative on the ballot in June, raising money to attract, retain, and provide professional development for, teachers. (Vote Yes on A!) If it passes--by no means a certain thing--that will help, for a while.
But good fucking God. What is up with us, that funding for education has to be a patchwork of last-ditch emergency measures? Why do we regard education with such suspicion? It may be reasonable for a kid to regard school as an interruption of liberty, but by the time you're twenty-five you should have gotten over it. If half the energy that goes into hand-wringing and frothing at the mouth about Why Johnny Can't Read and Why Our Teachers Aren't Accountable was expended in actually doing something to fund education, we'd have a literate populace that might even wind up Smarter than a Fifth Grader.