School funding rally this Thursday
Mayor Potter dropped by today’s Hope4Schools meeting to confirm that he’s willing to fire the first shot in the battle to keep our schools strong - and he’ll be announcing specific details of the upcoming ballot measure this coming Thursday.
To that end, Hope4Schools is organizing our kickoff rally this Thursday, January 26th at 5 pm at Benson High School (546 NE 12th.) I’ll be cutting out of work a bit early and bringing my kids (and whoever else I can corral) to Benson by 4:45. We’re expecting a huge crowd of parents, students, teachers, Mayor Potter, and community leaders present to launch the drive to STOP THE BUDGET CUTS for next school year - but we need you to stand alongside us in a show of solidarity if you believe, as I do, that a strong city cannot exist without a strong public school system.
Despite what today’s alternate-universe Oregonian editorial would have you believe, we’ll not be asking for money to support frivolities, nor do we believe that additional monies might eventually be available from an improved economy, our less than efficient legislative body down in Salem, or that equally-mythical pot at the end of the rainbow. Instead, we’re marshalling our resources to take care of business now - simply because there’s no one else who will, or can do it for us. There’s no fairy godmother waiting in the wings, no one ready to make the ugly realities of what a 57 million dollar shortfall will bring just go away with a wave of a magic wand. And - most importantly - we’re beating the drums yet again because our children are counting on us to do right by them.
Please stand with us.
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sorry, can’t support yet another tax under the guise of “save the children.” we’re being taxed to death in this state and i think there need to be some other options. how many of the parents now wondering if the schools will close voted in the past elections? maybe if push came to shove, these parents would try to make change in Salem or in government, not just tax their neighbor.
This tax-and-spend liberal who voted for the ITAX is now feeling rather cynical, as I believe the ITAX dollars were not spent particularly wisely.
We let Salem off the hook for the last 3 years. The ecomomy is recovering now, and it’s time to put the pressure on them, not the local taxpayers.
As a MultCo resident for the past 10 years, I’ve reluctantly paid the recent 3-year tax for the benefit of the schools. This, despite the fact that I send my son to private school.
BUT, this new proposal is over the top. The city seems to want to apply Band-Aids to patch what is a fundamentally screwed-up school system. Yet, I see NO action nor proposals to actually fix the school system itself and its inherent problems.
The first thing that needs to happen is to get serious and get a new, and competent, school board into place that can make decisions and stop the comedy of soap opera of the board members’ personal lives. We need well-educated people who CARE to make a difference.
Next, we need a thorough cost/benefit analysis about the PPS system overall. The net-net, is that students are migrating either to the suburbs or to private schools. This being the case, reduce operating costs accordingly. You can’t run a school system infrastructure that was designed for the schools 20 or 30 years ago. You have to adjust. If that means closing schools in a big way, so be it. Sell off the properties, consolidate the schools, and adapt with the times.
Lastly, why is it that the PPS per-student costs are so high? Why is a David Douglas district student getting less than $600 per annum, when a Portland student is getting over $1,100?
We need to have someone looking at these costs and why the PPS schools are so bloody high-cost.
Bottom line, ATTACK THE ROOT PROBLEM(S), don’t put a Band-aid on as a solution…