There's a Right Way and a Wrong Way

As we are all too aware, states are going through major budget crises right now. Tax revenue is down because of the recession, obligations are up because of shifted Medicaid burdens, and the states have to do whatever they can to balance their books. In most cases, states are doing so by cutting education. Now I was firmly against the shenanigans up in Wisconsin where the governor felt that the correct solution was not to cut a deal with the teachers but to take away their right to cut a deal, but I do believe that education tends to be a bureaucracy that could use trimming. The problem is that attempts to do so usually end up hurting not the bureaucrats, but the teachers, and so too the students.

And it's not like these bureaucrats don't deserve to get a nice public flogging. Consider the recent case in Central New York. The Jordan-Elbridge school district has been embroiled in controversy for months over a number of things. The superintendent got whacked, and then the interim superintendent wound up in a ridiculous situation with the district's director of operations. In what may be the biggest abuse of tenure ever, the Director of Operations, 6 months short of tenure and not guaranteed to keep her job when the new permanent superintendent and school board took over, drew up a new contract with the interim superintendent whereby he would grant her tenure early, and that if the new board or superintendent fired her, the district would owe her THREE YEARS PAY. As in $300,000!

It gets better... turns out the cozy relationship between Interim Superintendent and Director of Operations may have been on several different levels, as according to the Sub-Standard... errrr, Post- Standard, the Lady Director was often seen arriving at Interim Superintendent's house at night and leaving the next morning. So the J-E school board said enough is enough, whacked the Interim Superintendent (meaning they now have an interim interim superintendent), and voided the Director of Operations' new contract, put her on paid suspension, after which she herself will get whacked. One problem... legal experts have said the rationale used by the school board to void her contract won't hold up in court, so don't be surprised if she sues the crap out of the district. It is people like THESE who deserve to get the boot when education monies get cut.

Alas, despite the fact that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has done it right, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has done it right, Cuomo and Christie have caught hell from the teachers unions for it. Especially Christie from the NJEA, who run ad after ad after ad continuing to claim that Christie hurt education in New Jersey just to give the rich a "tax cut". Which could not be more wrong. Christie made his cuts in education AFTER a millionaire's tax imposed by previous Governor Jon Corzine expired and Christie chose not to reinstate it upon taking office. What's more, the NJEA has spent all this money in advertising while doing very little to support its actual members... ya know, by maybe trying to keep them from getting laid off. A lot of teachers in New Jersey understand now that their union is not there to protect jobs; the NJEA is there to protect and help the NJEA.

But in making these moves, Cuomo and Christie have managed to balance their state's budgets without adversely affecting public university education. In fact, tuitions at SUNY schools did not increase at all this year. They recognize that in an age where private school tuition is out of control, where private universities tend to resemble for-profit corporations that only care about how much profit they can rake in, the public universities give people a quality education at an affordable cost. Governor Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania fails to see this. His response to the money crunch in his state is to just issue more school vouchers and call it a day with regard to the K-12 schools.

Perhaps a major difference between NJ/NY and PA is the issue of local control. In New Jersey and New York, the people get to vote on approving the school budgets prepared by the school boards. Sometimes when the proposed tax increases are too high (as was the case on Tuesday at J-E, ironically enough), the voters vote down these budgets. They have their say in the process. In Pennsylvania, there is no local check on the process. The board comes up with their budget, approves it, and Joe Taxpayer gets stuck with the bill. And Corbett has made clear that he won't tax gas drillers, even though it is the big booming industry in the state right now, and these companies are taxed EVERYWHERE ELSE. Instead, Corbett took his budgetary hatchet to the appropriations for state universities. His proposed PA state budget cut these appropriations IN HALF. As a result, programs will be cut and tuition increased at Penn State (already one of the most expensive state schools in the country) and other state-affiliated schools.

This is reflective of a general trend in some states that see higher education as one of the functions that do not fall within the parameters of "limited government." That is the silliest thing on earth. As noted in an earlier blog post, I was in Texas last month, and the big story down there was that the governor and the Board of Regents were trying to do pretty much the same thing with Texas's public universities. Their rationale was that the things academic researchers get funding for are silly and have no bearing on our everyday lives. Add to that the perception that professors are only trying to indoctrinate students to become Marxists, and you have the unfortunate far-right view of higher education.

As a grad student and future professor, let me put the whole Marx thing in its proper context. Yes, I've had to read and understand Marx as part of my classes. He was an influential sociologist with many devotees who have carried on or tweaked his work in the last 100 years. However, having to read this stuff doesn't mean that I was indoctrinated in Marxism. I've also read Habermas and other proponents of more libertarian views, and I tend to like that stuff much more. And the things we research, at least in the communications field, ARE important to society because in case you hadn't noticed, communications and information kinda make the world go round these days... and your sons and daughters are going to college to learn how this stuff works FROM US. So wouldn't it be good for us to have the proper money within higher education to A) do research in order to FIGURE OUT how this stuff works, and then B) teach it to YOUR KIDS so they can make careers out of it!

In short, the most immediate way we can turn state economies around is by cranking out college-educated young adults who can enter the job force effectively and start making money, in turn leading to increased tax revenues for the state governments. So it would make the most sense to make sure these young adults CAN GO TO COLLEGE, and that they will get a quality education there. It is a difficult choice to make when balancing a budget that is running red ink, especially in the overtaxed Northeast, but Cuomo and Christie made the right choice, and Corbett could not have made a more wrong choice.