[Speed Gibson,
Thursday April 14, 2005 at 12:25am]
The 65 Percent Solution
George Will wrote of an interesting proposal, and I see Bogus Gold has also seen it.
A referendum in Arizona will require that 65% of public school spending actually be spent in the classroom. The current national average is 61.5%, but just those 3.5 percentage points are worth 13 billion dollars.
It sounds great, but why? What is it you really want?
If you have followed the education issue, you know that those 13 billion won't make much of a difference. Further, the activist courts will make a number of districts put the money back in the administration, in effect raising taxes. Finally, within two years, the budgets will be gerrymandered as to make this requirement moot.
No, admit it. You (and I) just want to watch the union heads and school superintendents squirm. It's a nice fantasy, and Lord knows a number of these people deserve such a fate. But it doesn't really solve anything.
Better still would be to design and mail out a simple, audited breakdown of the current spending, 2-3 pages at most. Outrage at the ballot box is a better outcome.
A referendum in Arizona will require that 65% of public school spending actually be spent in the classroom. The current national average is 61.5%, but just those 3.5 percentage points are worth 13 billion dollars.
It sounds great, but why? What is it you really want?
If you have followed the education issue, you know that those 13 billion won't make much of a difference. Further, the activist courts will make a number of districts put the money back in the administration, in effect raising taxes. Finally, within two years, the budgets will be gerrymandered as to make this requirement moot.
No, admit it. You (and I) just want to watch the union heads and school superintendents squirm. It's a nice fantasy, and Lord knows a number of these people deserve such a fate. But it doesn't really solve anything.
Better still would be to design and mail out a simple, audited breakdown of the current spending, 2-3 pages at most. Outrage at the ballot box is a better outcome.