Shameless plug

The Minneapolis Star Tribune today published an op-ed written by me in their weekly South metro section. The article was about how my local school district tends to cry poor in order to extort more and more money from hapless parents, and then wastes those same funds on ridiculous "services" that have nothing to do with education.

Most readers here aren't going to be interested in such a narrow topic, but I really liked how the article came out, so I am reposting it here for your reading pleasure.

Thanks again to the Strib for deeming my humble work printworthy.

http://www.startribune.com/332/story/1455245.html

It's good to know that School District 196 is keeping the fiscal promises that it made in recent years to the people it serves.

According to a Star Tribune South article published on Aug. 31, 2005 (www.startribune.com/a3383), the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school board, along with Superintendent John Currie, complained that the 4 percent increase in state funding approved by the Legislature that year just wasn't enough to keep the lights on, and that district residents were going to have to dig deep and pass a levy that would drive up the average homeowner's property tax bill by as much as $258.

School officials maintained that "class sizes will increase and teachers will be cut in upcoming years unless voters on Nov. 8 agree to renew and extend the district's existing operating levy, and to allow the district to raise property taxes to help pay staff salaries and school heating bills." They also vowed that if approved, the levy "will not result in new services or reduced fees for sports or parking."

When voters showed a reluctance to shower the district with all of the moola it demanded, the school board resorted to scaring parents by threatening to stop bus service if the levy failed. They also painted dire pictures in the media of situations such as 50 students in a class and pupils sitting on the floor for want of desks.

The levy ended up passing, in no small part because of the scare tactics by school officials.

Now we see, as shown in last week's Star Tribune South (www.startribune.com/a3384), that District 196 is showing the fiscal discipline it vowed to keep by building a $205,000 recording studio at the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley. How is this not a new service? They didn't have a studio, and now they do. Sounds new to me.

Putting aside the question of just what rock music has to do with the environment, is training students for a career in an industry where so few people are financially successful the best use of education dollars? I have a brother-in-law who is a professional musician in Los Angeles, and I see from following his and his bandmates' careers just how few people make it in that business. It seems to me that this class is nothing more than a place for slacker students to waste an hour polishing their Eddie Van Halen solos. Take this fellow:

"'We spend a lot of our time playing music,' said senior Cody Albertson, who plays his guitar beneath the teacher's lessons for most of the class. 'Why not get a good grade for it?'"

Yes, why not, indeed? I'm sure other students have a yen for martial arts or baking cakes or even modeling. Are we going to accommodate their wishes as well? After all, there are small numbers of people making a living in those industries, too.

SES Principal Dan Bodette attempts to argue that a necessary part of education is allowing students to fulfill some sort of vision quest:

"We have so many kids that just want to try something different on their own."

They're welcome to try anything they want. I just don't want to have to pay for it.

That money could have been used for teacher salaries, books or other critical needs. The district instead wasted it on a frivolous class that is in no way essential to a student's education.

The residents of the district would do well to remember this kind of unnecessary spending the next time the school board comes knocking, hat in hand, to whine about having to make even more cuts in its budget due to a lack of funds.