The Three Rs

Reading and wRiting and aRithmetic help us to make our way through the world.  Take, for example, the simple act of grocery shopping.  Knowing the Three Rs would allow a person to WRITE a grocery list, to READ the ingredients list on food packaging, and to use ARITHMETIC to comparison shop for the best prices.  The Three Rs are absolutely important to our functioning as a society; if we don't teach these things to children, I have to believe that the future looks pretty bleak.

I'm sure there was a time in the history of western society when learning the Three Rs was an adequate education.  Of course at that time there were no televisions or computers, there was no air conditioning, there were no automatic weapons in the hands of normal citizens, and junk food laden with corn syrup and hydrogenated oils were much less prevalent.  All of these things conspire to keep children inside and imaginatively stunted. 

There was a time (when Three Rs education was adequate) that children's entertainment involved running around the neighborhoods or the fields and pastures.  There was a time (before music became professionalized) that people would play music together in the living room or on the front porch. 

I believe the schools were wise, as our home lives moved more and more predictably inside, to make sure that music and art and physical movement were part of the curriculum.  We as a society saw the value in educating the whole person, instead of just the Three-Rs-basics of the intellect.  At one time, the Three Rs were enough, because we received the rest from the rest of our lives.

These days, though, we seem to be making the mistake of assuming that if the Three Rs were enough then, they're enough now as well.  We make the mistake of ignoring the changes that have taken place in our world.  We make the mistake of removing art and music and physical education from our schools to balance the budget. 

We make these mistakes because we make the mistake of not wanting to pay taxes because we believe that having money in today's bank account is better than investing that money in our children and the future of our society. 

Now, we could climb up onto our high-horse-pedestal and say schools shouldn't need to teach art and music and physical education because families ought to be making their kids get outside, that families ought to be exposing their children to music, that families ought to be turning off the television and the computer.  We could say that ~ but we also must recognize that as much as we might say it, it isn't going to happen.

So we have a choice, as a society.  We could say that the Three Rs are enough, and that we're willing to surrender our children to the trappings of poor health, cultural ignorance, and the power of advertisement, thereby allowing our children to become little more than passive beings with atrophied muscles and atrophied minds.  In this case, we can continue to pay teachers barely a living wage, seeing them as unskilled laborers and treating them worse (as if the degrees they've earned and the hours they spend dedicated to teaching our children are meaningless and insignificant). 

Or we could choose to raise taxes and fund schools the way they should be funded, paying teachers the professional salary they deserve as professionals. 

Because I dream of a more just and compassionate and beautiful society for the future, I choose the latter.

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Taxes and Education

I was talking with someone on Tuesday about taxes.  We were talking about taxes because Tuesday was voting day (which took me by surprise, having learned in school that voting day is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November ... did we change that without my awareness?), and because there was a proposal to raise taxes on the Colorado ballot.   

The revenue from this tax increase would have gone to pay for schools.  As it turns out (the votes having been counted), the proposal failed miserably.  Of course, as you can see from the previous blog post, I voted in favor of this increase.  It makes me sick that this measure failed ~ it makes me sick from my perspective as a citizen, and it makes me sick from my perspective as a Christian.

As a citizen, I find it to be tremendously short-sighted that we prefer individual comfort in the short term to societal well-being in the long term.  Sure, each household may end up with a little more money in our bank account next year; but having chosen to continue to underfund our schools, we are dooming the long term well-being of our society. 

It seems to me that one question we haven't resolved, a question we might not have even adequately asked, is the question, 'What is the goal of public education in this state/country?'  If our goal is that students graduate knowing how to read, how to write, and how to do basic and essential math, we could do that job with much less money than we spend now.  If, however, we choose to value educational goals that are not as easily measurable (skill in and appreciation of art and music and literature, long-term physical fitness, critical thinking skills, etc.), then we must fund schools so that we can teach these things to our future, because most of those items are being (or have been) written out of school budgets.  

If we choose the former, we will end up with individual graduates who can read and write and do basic math.  If we choose the latter, we will end up with a generation who can build a healthy, sustainable, and life-giving society.  I choose the latter, and for this reason will always vote in favor of tax increases that will benefit schools.

On the other hand, as a Christian, I find it unconscionable that any Christian would vote against this sort of measure.  Sure, the educational issues mentioned above may have a role to play in our decision; but ignore those completely for a moment.  For Christian adults to vote against increasing taxes which would benefit schools teaches Christian children that looking out for the self is more important than looking out for the other.  In a word, it teaches greed.  Whether you have children in your household or not, is this what we want our Christian witness to be?  We can say all we want about loving other people, but children pay more attention to what we do than to what we say; and if our actions don't follow our words, then our words are meaningless.

I wonder whether the fact that so many people think that our nation is a Christian nation causes problems for our faith.  It seems to me that if we see our nation as a Christian nation, we will assume that our national values are Christian values ... and, often, they most certainly are not.  But that's a topic for another blog post.  

For now, I'll simply hope that other measures end up on future ballots, and that we come to our senses.

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Tax Increase: Schools

I was asked recently whether I'll vote in favor of or against Colorado Proposition 103.  Colorado Proposition 103, if passed, will increase both sales tax and income tax in the state of Colorado for the next five years, with the additional revenue going to fund schools.  

I almost always vote in favor of tax increases, especially those that will benefit schools ~ and I'll probably vote yes on this one, too. 

As I understand it, though, there's disagreement about whether the proposition is well-constructed, though.  Part of the trouble may be that the tax increases might impact poor people the hardest.  Poor people won't be affected by the increase in state income tax (since they don't have enough income to have to pay that tax), but they will be hit harder by the increase in sales tax than richer people. 

We're talking about two different issues, though.  There is certainly a question as to which income bracket ought to bear the greatest brunt of the tax increase.   But before that, the question is whether schools have adequate funding. 

There are certainly some who say that increased funding has never produced better results.  Obviously more money does not necessarily equal better schools.  However, it seems to me that better results are much more difficult without increased funding.  One is not a direct result of the other, but the one is impossible without the other.  If it were true that lowered funding had no effect on performance, we could run schools for free ... which is (I hope) obviously absurd. 

Now, some people also say that the schools don't need increased revenue ~ we just need to get rid of teachers unions.  The extension seems to be that if we get rid of unions, we could balance the schools' budgets by lowering teachers' salaries (or firing teachers who are too expensive).  I have to take issue, though, with the opinion that an average salary of less than $50,000 is too expensive. 

(Of course, any time anyone mentions labor unions, there's bound to be strong differences of opinion about the efficacy of those groups.  Obviously they aren't the favorite entities of business owners, since they have a tendency to cut into profits.  At the same time, unions are certainly necessary, since without the power of collective bargaining, many business owners would succumb to the pull of greed at the expense of workers.  Plus, just like any institution, both unions and business owners have the potential to become corrupt.) 


At the end of the day, it comes down to a question of values ... particularly, what do we value?  Do we value more highly our ability to increase our bank accounts?  Do we value more highly our ability to buy things right now?  Do we value more highly ourselves and our present circumstance? 

Or are we willing to be a couple percentage points less well-off right now in order to invest in schools; in order to invest in our future? Because I'm afraid that if we're not willing to invest in schools now, we're condemning the future to tremendous desperation and hardship, which our national ancestors did their best not inflict on us.  And that, I believe, is ridiculous and wrong.

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