As I said in my last post, perfect-storm changes will start happening extremely fast:
[Kindergarten isn’t one of the] necessities in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, according to the school district’s proposal to cut costs amidst a $7 million deficit. Officials voted Monday to approve $200,000 in raises for 14 administrators.
It certainly seems like the $18,000 raise the school superintendent got, would go a long way toward providing sports equipment, yes. But it doesn’t cover the cost of the coach to run the sports program. The $200,000 as a whole might cover a few kindergartens, but it doesn’t solve the budget crunch.
How about firing administrators, and decentralizing control from the central school board and county offices to the individual schools? Of course, that’s not where the budget decisions are made. And as Mark Twain said,
You can’t make a man see the truth when his salary depends on not seeing it.
The administrators are maintaining the bureaucracy which pays them rather than the schools which are their alleged raison d’etre. Maybe they can train some digitally savvy Indians to be long-distance kindergarten teachers.
Dear Mr. Watt,
I did not understand the one word in this post. Are you saying in Pennsylvania they have no kindergarten?
-Maggie
Dear Maggie,
No, it’s only the city of Harrisburg, PA. The city is bankrupt, because they spent more than they collected in taxes for a long time. A federal court called the “bankruptcy court” has ordered them to reorganize the city government so they spend less money. Since the city runs the schools, the mayor and town council asked the school board to cut costs for schools. The school board thus voted to give top school administrators around $200,000 in raises, and shut down the kindergartens throughout the city.
Dear Mr. Watt,
Do the kindergardeners have to do what the kids from prek to third grade will have to do in the five year time bomb?
-Maggie
[…] update them. And the pension fund isn’t going to last through the next decade.” He referenced the Harrisburg story, and added, “The unions are shooting themselves in the foot, if not the head, here. […]