There is no greater potential for wealth transfer, economic development, personal improvement, or indoctrination than our public school system.
What we simultaneously love about our schools – education, athletics, arts, social maturity, and skills-training – is often the source of our greatest frustrations, such as social engineering, bullying, and forced conformance/political correctness.
So, when Loudoun County has to deal with a requested budget of nearly $1 billion for its schools – to a tune of more than $12,000 per pupil – we’re talking no small matter.
But, apparently, $1 billion is not enough to run Loudoun schools. At least not enough according to the Washington Post, Loudoun’s school system spokesperson, and the Loudoun Education Association. Nor is the $70 million that’s already been added to the budget enough to keep them solvent.
Nope, apparently a five percent increase in spending per student is not enough to save 100 employees from the chopping block.
“The bottom line, in my opinion, is the fact that the Board of Supervisors would not work with the School Board,” said Joey Mathews, president of the Loudoun Education Association, an advocacy group representing thousands of public school employees. “The School Board has unanimously passed a needs-based budget, and the Board of Supervisors did not compromise at all.”
Needs-based? Just how much needs to be spent per student to prepare them to be competitive in the global market? Apparently what the LEA, VEA, or NEA dictates.
Forgive me if I think this is a “first world” problem. Here’s the school I taught at when I was on assignment in Haiti:
To put Loudoun’s “problem” in perspective, the City of Chesapeake’s school budget has gone from nearly $240 million in 2009 to to $204 million this year. For those of you who are students in Loudoun that are clearly no longer being given an adequate education: that’s a drop of approximately 15%. In that entire time, employees were never used as a bargaining chip. Dr. James Roberts, the superintendent, only recently has mentioned adjusting benefits for employees – not laying them off.
Perhaps I’m a bit cynical on this issue when I consider how many millions of dollars are being spent on education in Virginia’s purportedly “wealthiest” community when educators start lamenting that there is nothing more that can be done but to lay people off – when they are given a LARGER budget than last year.
The reality is that local governance is about setting priorities – and the priorities being set by the school board, at least how it is coming across to outsiders, is not on the services being provided by these employees, but that, perhaps, a building or another program is more important.
And that’s fine. Driver’s Ed training was cut here in Chesapeake. And it stinks for those who have kids learning how to drive. So if Loudoun has decided to preserve an arts program, wants to build another school, or thinks some other program or project is more important than 100 jobs – so be it. Live with the consequences. We live in a world with finite resources.
But what it appears to me is happening in Loudoun is the worst kind of political maneuvering: using human beings and their livelihoods as pawns to advance an agenda. I sense that these employees don’t need to be cut, but that those in power are using them as pawns to get their budget, with a media that’s more than complicit to support them.
J.R. Hoeft is the founder of BearingDrift.com.
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