other people's money

excerpt from my first email of the year to our new assistant superintendent of curriculum and technology:

Hi G. -----

Hope your summer was good!

Ours was great, but too short.

Quick note — I got a call today from a friend who was at the Middle School store.

A couple of things:

She has a middle-class income & was distressed by how much the supplies cost. She’d spent $175 at Staples; today she was asked for $80 at the school. When she questioned the price of a composition notebook, which is apparently double what we would pay at Staples, one of the secretaries told her the teachers had picked it out because they want “uniform” notebooks. (She and her husband are also spending thousands of dollars a year to IMS tutors on the recommendation of their guidance counselor, so I’m sure that’s part of it.)

In any case, “the teachers want uniform notebooks” isn’t the best rationale for requiring parents to purchase an expensive notebook....

G.'s answer was good.

This kind of thing has been the message to Irvington parents forever, in large ways and small.

I will never forget the president of the school board addressing middle school parents on Back to School Night two years ago.

The community had already voted in two enormous bonds, amounting to $49,000,000 I think (I have a terrible memory for numbers, but "many millions" would be the correct verbal description of the sum). The village has a population of 6500 people and virtually no industry; not sure what the tax base is. (I believe part of Tarrytown and/or Greenburgh also pay Irvington school taxes?? Though they may not -- there's some controversy over this. I AM IN SERIOUS NEED OF FACT-CHECKING)

Anyway, my point is: the community had already voted in two humungous bonds.

The president of the school board said, "We're going to ask you to reach into your pockets again, and support a $12-million dollar bond for fields." He said it almost the way a preacher would say it;^* this was money for the Lord. Good people like us would naturally reach into our pockets to support very large school bonds one after nother, and we would do this because we are good; reaching into our pockets for very large school bonds is the thing that makes us good.

That may have been the moment I turned.

I remember thinking, you've got to be kidding.

The bond was subsequently whittled down to, I'm thinking, $9 million, through the unceasing efforts of residents who bordered the construction.... did it then go down to 6??

God.

Is Alzheimer's setting in right this minute? If so, loyal readers will have a front-row seat. I'm going to be doing some serious editing of this post after someone tells me what I'm talking about.

Point is: the bond started at $12 million, went down to 9 or 6 or 5 million, and was then narrowly defeated.

So now we're getting some rhetoric about cost-cutting, and some action, too, though not nearly enough. The superintendent, in her letter introducing this year's budget increases, included the words, "This is not a frivolous budget." Not a frivolous budget isn't the standard we should be shooting for.

That's at the macro level.

But at the micro level it's, "the teachers want uniform notebooks."

Or "buy a one hundred dollar calculator and bring it to school the first day when we'll be so disorganized we won't assign lockers until the kids have had a chance to rifle through each other's backpacks for stuff to sell on ebay."

Assuming that is what in fact occurred.

I will investigate further.


TI 84 page on ebay
"instructional time issues"
hundred dollar calculator
178 days left 'til summer
email to the principal re: hundred dollar calculators
other people's money
what is the opposite of a silver lining?


^* Not any preacher I know, but a cliche´ preacher, a preacher in a movie not friendly to preachers.