If You Care About Public Education
Letter to Editor, 5-04-03

Teacher unions across New York converged on Albany last Saturday to protest the cuts to "education" in the governor's budget. The advertisements promoting the protest suggested that you participate "if you care about public education".

The ads and the protest itself were offensive to me and should be to anyone else who actually cares about the future of our children. The unions who sponsored the protest care only about their monopoly, extravagant salaries, health benefits and pensions. What they were really talking about was not education per se, but union controlled, government run public schools. It's their system. It's not education.

Maybe because the teacher unions are isolated from the realities of the free market, they cannot understand our plight. If they cared about the well being of the children, they would recognize the economic hardships that New York families are facing these days. They would support a new system for financing public schools that incorporated a free market model in sync with modern America. We should not be shackled to a centuries old system where children are compelled by the government to attend the nearest government run school. It should go the way of the buggy whip.

If we continue to borrow money for the education of today's students, where will they get the money to pay for the education of their children? And don't forget, today's children will also be stuck with higher social security taxes to pay for the baby boomers' retirement. When today's parents vote to borrow education money, they are really signing loans that will have to be paid back by their children after they have graduated. Will the graduates stay here in New York and repay that debt or will they choose to leave for the greater opportunity and less taxation of other states? We're leaving them a massive pyramid of debt and unlike a college loan; they can choose not to repay it. We are setting an example of fiscal irresponsibility.

The faculty of Fulton-Montgomery Community College has voluntarily taken a 2% temporary pay cut in order to maintain staffing levels. They serve as examples of integrity and professionalism that their contemporaries ought to emulate. Let's all do the right thing for the children. It's time to start thinking outside of the box. It's time to show some vision. The first step is to say NO to increased spending. Say NO to the budget.

DRC