Is more money really the answer?

For months we have been subjected to vacuous slogans (Strong Schools, Strong Communities), gauzy ads, and emotional letters in support of yet another school tax increase.

In reviewing my nearly 20 years of files on this issue, I find that there has been virtually no change either in the pleas for new taxes, nor the reasoning (sic) for them. We are told that the current tax proposal will be good for the county’s longterm economy, yet if history is the prelude to the future we can only be assured that any attempt at local economic development will be fought tooth and nail (think marina expansion, the DHS facility in the “business park,” and the Dollar General store proposal).

By now it should be clear to all that the current modus operandi of school financing is unsustainable. Charter school enrollments are rising, and home schooling is quite popular, yet ISD 166 enrollment has been dwindling for decades while county population has remained stable. Why the decline? To what do parents object? I have never heard the question asked, let alone answered. Is it the administration’s response to bullying, and other school-yard problems? Is it the mindless implementation of “zero tolerance” policies instead of employing rational decision-making? Is it the indoctrination of NEA or federal social engineering concepts? Is it frequent social promotion? Is actual American history taught, or is it a politicized version thereof?

Over the last two decades there have been several attempts to raise school taxes. In every case we were assured that without the increase the educational sky would fall, however, the district continues to involve itself ever more extensively in areas unrelated to education, and in which it has no responsibility: The Arrowhead Center for the Arts, YMCA, breakfast and lunch programs, and “preschool,” the latter a euphemism for babysitting. ISD 166 cannot continue to expand its non-academic endeavors concomitant with shrinking enrollment unless the goal is to tax us into oblivion to educate no one. If money was the answer, then Washington, D.C.’s schools would be the finest in the nation, not the worst.

Nevin D. Holmberg
Hovland