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A Budget Related To Education
The Republican Party of Orange County regularly solicits the views and news of the state and federal delegation. Please read this week's Op-Ed by Ray Grangoff
Over the past few months we have heard a lot from state legislators and local elected leaders about coping with the state government’s massive budget deficit. The State of California is not receiving enough revenue to cover the cost of the current state bureaucratic system. As a result of this shortfall local government will also be receiving less money for their budgets. After evaluating this situation many elected leaders conclude that California simply needs to take in more money to meet current and future spending demands. So how do they propose to increase revenue? At the state level these legislators would support increasing your taxes; Democrats are proposing over $9 billion in tax increases. Some legislators even talk about extending the sales tax to include services (currently sales tax only applies to goods). Fortunately Orange County’s Republican legislators are committed to holding the line against new taxes. At the local level some city officials support increasing fees and looking for "creative" ways to impose new fees on citizens and businesses.
Sadly these elected leaders not only miss the mark in developing real solutions to our budget crisis, but also are pushing our state to an even bigger crisis in the future. The real problem is not a lack of revenue, but rather the massive and inefficient bureaucracies that need to be scaled down and reformed. Now is the perfect time to address the real problem.
In solving the current crises our elected leaders should remember the old saying, "When life gives you lemons make lemonade." Now is the perfect time for elected officials to think differently and use new and innovative strategies to shrink and reform our state and local governments to be more efficient and less costly. Unfortunately too many of our politicians are either unable or unwilling to think beyond the status quo. Mostly unwilling-- taking on the powerful public employee groups that represent those who run our bureaucracy is a Herculean task. However it is what needs to be done in order to get our government back on track.
Most of us in conservative Orange County are already convinced that reform is needed. In reality we cannot depend on the liberal Democrats who control our legislature to provide the state wide reform that is needed since they are the ones who have perpetuated the status quo. However, we can do a lot on our own here at the local level, starting with our public schools. In fact, no where is this need for reform most evident then in our public school system.
In our current debate over the budget crisis the education community has been one of the most vocal about potential cuts in funding. You probably have read or seen news reports about the numerous protests across the state and in Orange County urging that funding for schools be protected. The protestors argue that if we continue to increase funding to our schools we will see an improvement in quality. However, the fact of the matter is the level of funding is no indication of the quality of education in a school. For example, the Washington, DC public school system spends more money per student then nearly anywhere in the nation, yet DC public schools continue to be some of the worst in the country. When thinking of school funding think of a car with a broken down engine—no matter how much gas you put into that broken car it won’t work because the engine needs to be overhauled. Don’t be fooled by those that demand more money for a broken system, throwing good money after bad is an easy answer but by no means an answer that will work.
In his new book, Real Change, Newt Gingrich writes that the Los Angeles school system only graduates fewer then 50 percent of its students on time. That means that 1 out of 2 students are failed by the education system. Gingrich makes the point that if a business took money from its customers and only performed 50 percent of the time it would be closed in a day and probably face at least one lawsuit, but we allow our schools to fail and continue to pour more money into the broken down system. Einstein’s definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
The system needs to be overhauled. The good news is that there are real concrete examples of reforms that have worked. Charter schools, vouchers, merit based pay, and revising union rules to favor good performing teachers have been tried in a few places and have resulted in amazing things for students. Some schools have been very innovative and have realized that learning can take place outside of the classroom. Partnering with local businesses can enable students to spend part of their day off campus learning about a career or field that interests them. For example, a student interested in medicine could spend part of his or her day interning at the local doctors office. As a result of this partnership the student gets to learn about something he is interested in, learns some practical skills, and is on his way to a potential career path. The best part about these reforms is they can be put in place at the local level.
These types of programs require upsetting the status quo and educating students very differently then how we have been educating them over the last several decades. That is a good thing. Technology changes rapidly, yet the way we teach in most of our schools looks similar to the way we taught back before the internet, computers, and even colored television. It is about time that education has caught up with the rest of the world. This will only be done if we challenge the system and stop believing in the notion that merely spending more money on something will solve the problem.
This will not be easy. Despite the fact that there are several examples of pockets of success in schools around the country the leaders of the education establishment refuse to change. Some refuse to change because they are afraid to try new things and cling to the familiarity of the status quo. Others, mainly the leaders of the teachers’ unions, prefer the status quo that greatly benefits them (unfortunately it benefits them at the detriment of students). It will not be easy to fight this entrenched status quo but we must demand that our elected leaders wage and win this fight. Nothing less then our future is at stake.
Reforming education is only one example of what needs to be done in our government. Nearly every area of our state and local government needs to be examined before government receives increases in funding and citizens receive increases in their taxes. Let’s use this current budget crisis to our advantage. Let’s take the opportunity to "make lemonade out of lemons" and finally get things right.
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