Teaching
by Matt Worley

In 1994, President Clinton passed a crime bill that spent 8.8 billion over three years to increase the amount of police in this country. 100,000 more cops was the promise, which would lead to a decrease in crime. Many Democrats thought the money should be spent on education and rehabilitation. Most Republicans wanted more prisons and harsher punishment. By most accounts, the President was actually right about this one. Crime rates have been going down for the last couple of years.

Funding for this three year project is coming to an end soon, which means that if communities want to keep the level of police they have now, the individual communities will have to foot the bill. Because of the surging economy, most police departments feel the funding will be there--regular people like it when there is less crime, and the communities are mostly in the business of pleasing the people.

Of course, the surging economy could be a major reason crime rates are down over the last two years. Less unemployment means less desperate crime. People turning away from the law to keep their mouths fed. While the level of crime will never go to zero (habitual and career criminals will never stop unless caught), it seems like having a few extra cops in those testy areas of town are discouraging those who feel they need to commit crimes to live.

So let's just, for the sake of argument, say that this crime bill actually did something to fight crime (as many reports admit). This admission might be a step in the right direction for better government. Obviously more prisons and harsher punishment does nothing to stop people from committing crimes, it just pisses them off more when they get caught. The idea behind the 1994 crime bill is to stop crime before it starts, not just hurt criminals real bad after it happens. So if this proactive government policy is working, maybe we can take a few billion dollars and try this in another part of life that needs a little fixing.

Public education. Everyone thinks the schools are doing a bad job preparing our youngsters for the future. Dropout rates in this state and elsewhere are sky-high. Democrats want school uniforms and closed campuses, Republicans want to give out vouchers (like educational food stamps) so parents can choose which schools to send their kids to. These are merely cosmetic and ultimately do nothing for the kids who aren't graduating from high school. In terms of intelligence, it's not hard to graduate from high school, but outside circumstances can distract many students. While a school uniform and change of venue might help some students focus, it is merely non-chemical Ritalin. A distraction rather than a cure.

The answer is in changing the system of public schools. The only way to make good money in education is to move up to management positions (assistant principals, guidance councilors, principals, and higher up in the school system hierarchy)--rewarding teachers for stopping their teaching isn't sending the right message to people interested in teaching. The sad fact is that many people who would be good teachers don't want to be teachers because they won't get paid enough.

Many of the best and brightest people in this country want to be doctors and lawyers--not necessarily because they like these professions (although many do), but because there is good money to be made. We lavish huge amounts of money on smart talkers who can con juries into believing a woman burned by coffee really should get millions of dollars in compensation. That people who have smoked cigarettes for 50 years should be paid for their stupidity. While there is no way to compensate a teacher for the amount of graduates they produce, there is a way to get more of our best and brightest into school rooms. Pay them more.

The second step (which follows this first one closely) is to hire more teachers. Classes need to be smaller so that more students can be personally dealt with. Many big cities that have resisted or reverted from year-round schools need to get over parental bitching and use school buildings better. These aren't churches we educate our kids in, they're buildings and should be used to the fullest potential. Letting them sit for three months is a waste of taxpayers money. Yes, it messes up vacations--but if parents wants to take their kids out for vacation, they have to work it out with their employers anyway. Planning is involved either way. Working out a work schedule is much harder than working out a school schedule--schools get more off days. If year-round initiatives don't solve the class size problem, build more schools.

All of this takes money of course, which is why I brought up the crime bill in the first place. If we can effectively reduce crime by spending a little more money and hiring more police, can't the same be true for teachers? It will cost more money than the crime bill, and other parts of the budget will have to be slashed. We might have to stop giving subsidies to tobacco farmers and large corporations. We might have to cut into defense. Other options will have to be explored. The result is a better future for our kids and our country. And that's why we educate our kids in the first place, isn't it?

Matt Worley will submit his annual budget to Congress in a few weeks--and it will include that massive tax cut you've all been waiting for! Cheap bastards.

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