Public Education: Is It Just About Budgets, About Salaries, About Teachers?...No, Not Really...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - Back when I was writing about Mexico for The Houston Post, I would at times pull into some small town aboard some battered bus in the company of some really poor people. Dust that covered my blue blazer always seemed like it belonged there at those times, when stepping off the bus meant fending-off a small army of unwashed kids asking for either a few coins or a peso for a pack of gum. It always struck me that such towns needed something for these kids to get off their begging and their pushing of those Chiclets.

American kids don't know that rotten life. At least, not today's public school kids. They aren't allowed to beg in Texas or any other state, and they sure as Hell would never lower themselves to selling anything at the bus station. From time to time, I've seen kids peddling candied-apples and Mexican candy at some of the Rio Grande Valley's restaurants and taquerias, but they always seem to be accompanied by adults.

I bring this here this morning as the state wrestles with wanting to slash some $10 billion from public school funding and wondering what the Hell that is going to mean - to schools and to society. No one knows, but most agree that it will not be a pretty sight. There cannot possibly be anything good in seeing a classroom filled from wall to wall, more than 30 students sitting here, awaiting instruction while wondering where the surrounding mob came from. Teachers don't have a chance. Kids may as well stay home. The current system has let them down.

Yet, as budgets are being framed by stunned administrators who expect much, much less in funding from the state, it does allow for a bit of reflection. We ask: How much funding did your school district get, say, 10 years ago? 15? 20? A whole lot less, is my freakin' guess.

Without a doubt, pay for administrators has risen like cartoon weeds. And wild weeds tend to grow at will, oblivious to any sort of exterior control. A superintendent being paid $200,000 annually is no longer rare. Some make a whole lot more. But there are striking comparisons: the superintendent of Harlingen is paid $200,000, plus perks; the superintendent of New York City makes $250,000, with some perks. NYC has many, many more students than Harlingen, so why is the local guy being paid an amount not exactly in keeping with the local economy?

Spare me the cliche bullshit about superintendent being worth their pay in gold. If they were, we wouldn't see so many problems with so many schools and so many students failing to meet standards. Standards! No, the nation's youth will not be educated in the superintendent's office. Our hopes and dreams are carried daily on the backs of underpaid and overworked teachers. Spend a day at your child's school (if school officials will let you) and see the so-called learning environment. Most people wouldn't do it, not even for twice the salary, which is less than half of what administrators are paid.

So, yeah, put down the handkerchief and forget about crying. Administrators will never backtrack from their hunt for the best-paying job. Superintendents are like rodeo clowns; they hang around a few years and then start circulating those resumes, riding the super's circuit, always looking for more money, more freedom, but rarely seeing the results parents and society expect. Accountability is not part of their contract. Student performance does not affect their pay. Their sole audience is the schoolboard they serve. Get the schoolboard behind you and the job's a breeze; get one on your ass and, yeah, there go the resumes.

Life guarantees no one anything. Students still must do the work, study and perform at test time.

That has never changed.

What is clear is that when Americans bitch and moan about their particular public schools, it's always about money. Fancy stadiums must be built, the field covered by fancy artificial turf and the "jumbo" scoreboard better not be different than those found in major college stadiums. Public education often is compared to the pseudo-essence of one's own life: It's not how you feel, it's how you look. Those statistics on this piece of paper say we're doing okay. Really? Don't bet on it.

Little will change even if Texas does slash all those millions from school district budgets. Somehow, the schools will stay open, students will file in and teachers will provide their tireless, thankless tasks. It's called civilization, and civilized people do not fold; they overcome.

Who knows what became of those poor kids in the Mexican town I visited all those years ago? But I know this: All of them could never have imagined having books, having the luxury of going to an air-conditioned school, getting a warm meal even when the family wallet could never pay for it, being availed a bus ride to the campus, having a teacher teach things that these orphans or a dirt-poor kids would never learn.

Nope. Those kids would learn little and parental expectations would be down on the ground. American kids have it all within their reach, yet our kids rank below those of other countries in subjects such as science and math. Every year, yes. And of course you know that it's been going on for decades...

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