For decades, even centuries, wise men have pointed out that governing is a choice. Charles de Gaulle elaborated that governing is “choosing among disadvantages.”
The leaders of Connecticut's education lobby and the state legislators they control would have no such wisdom.
They're angry at Governor Lamont for proposing to transfer $43 million in state aid to the city school system for “early childhood education.” Although the governor hasn't said so, he may think the lack of child care for children from poor families is a bigger problem than school systems asking for more funding. Most of that money is spent on staff compensation, most of which has gone up. Every year, child care expansions are thought to do more to benefit neglected children than pay raises for teachers and administrators, even as student enrollment and performance decline.
This implication may be infuriating the education lobby and its instruments in the General Assembly. Last week they cried out that different elements of education should not be competing with each other for spending, and that both schools and “early childhood education” should get what they want, no questions asked.
But, of course, the elements of education are already competing with each other for money. Every time school boards create a budget, they compete, and because of the state's binding arbitration law and teachers' union contracts, school officials' pay trumps everything else. Robbie never complains.
Governors and legislators make these choices on a much larger scale every time they craft state government budgets. And education costs compete with everything else, including transportation, health insurance, housing, environmental protection, and criminal justice.
Kate Diaz, president of the Connecticut Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, said “we can't have a dollar-for-dollar mindset” when it comes to spending money on education. But since 100 yen stores are known for being highly economical, what's the problem, other than the fact that teachers' unions are happy when their members are paid more than they should?
Aside from significant political influence, why should those who receive income from the government in the name of education be exempt from competition for spending?
Additionally, there is no “hundred dollar store mentality” in Connecticut. Along with education. Since the state Supreme Court's 1977 Houghton v. Meskill school financing decision and the passage of the Education Improvement Act in 1986, the premise of Connecticut's education policy has been that the government must spend enough money, especially to compensate teachers. It was said to be good. , student grades skyrocket. Acting on that premise for almost 50 years, Connecticut has spent billions of extra dollars in the name of education, only to see student proficiency decline.
Schools cannot be blamed entirely for this decline. As the governor's emphasis on early childhood education shows, a much bigger problem is the breakdown of families and child-rearing due to worsening poverty. As was recently the case, more than a third of Connecticut's children are chronically absent from school, a situation that is indicative of poverty and low morale, but also shows that the problem lies in school spending. You don't need a PhD to understand that there is no shortage.
In fact, the lack of correlation between student performance and school spending has been evident for many years, as has the strong correlation between student performance, stable child care, and family income. . But the political economy of Connecticut and most other states, where vast numbers of people are employed in the name of education, precludes such recognition.
The governor and the Legislature should know that. Rejecting his proposal to shift funding from schools to “early childhood education” will ensure the education lobby gets the funding it wants and perpetuate its irrelevance.legislative body intention Select, but against less influential interests.
Historian Edward Gibbon attributed the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to a steady erosion of civic virtue. That the Connecticut education riot continues without any real question about its dire consequences suggests that government has outgrown the civic virtues to fix it. are doing.
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Chris Powell has been writing about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
