Edu-tax-cation

So I came home last week to a piece of mail that surprised me.

No, it wasn’t a delayed-delivery Christmas card with a crisp C-note in it…Darn it.

Instead, it was a ballot.

I had no idea there was a special election taking place and opened the ballot to see what pointless recount/initiative was causing all of the hullabaloo.

Color me embarrassed, but I soon realized the special election was about something I value greatly, education. The election was simple, the Seattle School District offered-up two levies for approval.

On the face, these levies appeared to be the Seattle School District foisting even more taxes upon the over-burdened citizens of Seattle. *I should say, the Seattle School District foisting even more taxes upon the over-burdened Property-Owning citizens of Seattle.

I note that last distinction because I’ve previously been a property owner and now understand what property taxes are. They can be a rather foreign concept to a renter, and my previous stance was to approve any property tax increases as it didn’t affect me…I also think kids deserve books and enjoy paved streets/public transit. So why not approve everything and let someone else foot the bill?

But I digress, as I delved into the nuts and bolts of the levies being proposed, I noted they were not proposing any new taxes, but simply requesting to maintain existing, but expiring levies.

Now that I am back to renting, I am on-board with approving property tax hikes, as long as they make sense. So I am not going to tell you how I voted, but I think you can figure it out. *I will note that even when I was a property owner, I stayed pretty true to my blue-state leanings and usually sided with tax increases, as long as I thought they served a greater good. By the way, Education = a greater good in my book.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. I hate the saying, as it’s pretty cliché, but it’s so damn true. As I hear of cuts to what I consider vital social programs: education, mental health, social services, all in the name of a balanced budget that is anything but, I get a lil fired-up. It is akin to cutting off the nose despite the face.

These programs (education especially) are in no less demand than this time last year, 4, or even 10 years ago. So why are they on the chopping block?

Simple answer- Politics.

Letting a levy expire is a backdoor way of lowering education spending without having to take the PR-hit that goes along with actually cutting education spending.

I’ll grant that every levy is a term-limited proposition. As such, everyone knows the levy will expire at some point. But I see levies as band-aids, not solutions. A levy is a short-term fix as a (hopefully) better long-term solution is researched and implemented.

That obviously hasn’t happened here. And the economy has worsened, so offsets to budget shortfalls by donations from the private sector have disappeared. Which only increases the need to, at a minimum, maintain current spending on education.

Not that any of this matters to me anyway.

I am a single fella with no kids who rents his house. So the tax hike won’t burden me, much the same way letting the levy expire won’t benefit me.

Yet here I am ranting away, Why?

Because a poorly educated populace does no one any favors. Isn’t giving kids a decent education worth a couple hundred bucks a year?

Poor education is not a blue or red issue. It’s a societal issue. Everyone is entitled to the right of being able to “read, write and arithmetic” regardless of political leanings. Kids are not a political token and education is not a place to cut corners, Period.

Maybe forcing senators and other such elected officials to take some of the unpaid furlough days they’ve forced on other lower-level public servants will drive the point home…

A tough Good-Bye.

It’s now been (sigh) over 10 years since I last roamed the halls of my high school. But recent news has brought my alma mater to the forefront of many discussions here in Seattle.

I was born and raised in Rainier Beach. I graduated from Rainer Beach High School in 1997. As such, I have a special affection for the school. High school was the first time I was allowed to go to a Seattle school. I attended elementary and middle schools in a nearby district as my parents thought they were better options. Yet, come high school, I was allowed to go to RB, which was sweet as I finally got to go to school with all my friends from the neighborhood.

After four years, I graduated with a decent GPA, having lettered in a couple sports and being about as extracurricularly active as one can ask for. I participated in Student Government and even got to meet John Stanford, still one of the most impressive men I’ve ever had the chance to shake hands with.

I loved/love RB. Which is why the next sentence is one of the hardest ones I’ve ever tapped-out on a keyboard.

It’s time for RB to go.

During my time at RB there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 700-800 registered students. If 75% of those kids showed-up regularly, I’d be shocked. And now, per the Seattle Times, RB enrollment in 2007 had dropped to 455.

Even back when I was a student there was talk of combining Cleveland High and RB. We actually had a joint-wrestling team as neither school was big enough to field a full team on their own.

It simply makes no sense to keep RB open.

Being a lifetime resident of Rainier Beach, I understand what the school means to the community. But what is a poorly functioning school really doing for the community? I remember my math teacher having to work-out a trade (maybe just steal) text books for my Pre-Calculus (one of the few AP-level) class. How is it fair to ask students/teachers to show-up to school with a broken-down crutch, when other schools in the district have powered wheelchairs?

I now live in the Central District, just blocks from the newly renovated Garfield High School. And the place looks amazing! My younger brother works for the Seattle School District and played quite a role in rolling-out the high-tech remodel of Roosevelt High School in North Seattle. So I got an insider’s tour of the wi-fi hot-spots and interactive touch-screen whiteboards introduced at Roosevelt. The Roosevelt remodel followed the highly publicized renovation of Ballard High School. All are great examples of the Seattle School District upgrading to stay with the times to offer students the best possible opportunities to learn.

By comparison, RB got a new Sports Complex.

What kind of message does that send to the community?

While the Sports Complex is very nice, where are the wi-fi hot spots? Where are the new computer labs? Where are (at the very least) the textbooks?

It’s long been a gripe that the N. End schools- Ballard, Roosevelt (read: well-off, white) were treated better than those on the S. End- Cleveland, RB (read: poor, minority). The vast discrepancies in services/upgrades seem to corroborate that fact. *Cleveland just did receive a remodel itself, to be fair.

N. End schools, get upgrades that prepare students for college. While S. End schools get upgrades that prepare student athletes for college sports.

Some might say, “Hey if you are being prepped for college sports, at least you are going to college.”

But, far too few students benefit scholastically from an athlete factory. RB has always had an athletically gifted student body: perennial powers in Track and Basketball, producing College-level athletes in numerous sports. But what about the kids like me, whose future (like 99% of students) doesn’t lie in College Athletics? Where are the resources for them?

The question of whether RB must be closed is moot.

What should be asked is: How did RB get to the point that it must be closed? How/why was it allowed to fail?

There are a modicum of factors that go into answering that question: Cultural nuances, changing demographics and simple finances. And I am not going to presume to have an answer.

However, it is critical to ponder those questions as to prevent a similar failure at Cleveland after merging the two.

It makes no sense to keep RB open as Cleveland was recently renovated and is simply a bigger and more up-to-date facility. The money has been spent and in times like these, stretching a dollar is the only way to go.

Will I be sad to see RB close? Yes.

Instead of (understandably) focusing on anger and spite to keep RB open, people must focus on strengthening Cleveland. To prevent the same missteps that caused RB to be shuttered.

As much as this is about a community losing one of the few positive anchors, it is more important to think about the current RB students who deserve better.

Here are some links to stories about RB:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008471680_rainier05m0.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008467004_schoolclosure04m.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008467126_webschoolclosure03m.html
*I recommend reading some of the comments. It’s interesting to see how prevalent stereotypes still are. Maybe we aren’t as far along in race relations as Obama’s election would make people think.