Essay: One Cheer for the Governor - 11.6.09

The state House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday that would use the remaining federal stimulus money to restore some of the cuts to public schools… However, it may not pass the senate. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry takes a look at what’s going on...

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For some time now it has been clear that there won’t be a penny of the federal stimulus money left for next year’s budget. A few months ago, the politicians in Lansing were talking as if there would be a billion bucks left to help them with the next deficit.

Know how much is left now? Near as I can tell, a mere $184 million, and that is bound to be tossed at some portion of the ever-growing gap in this year’s budget before many more weeks go by.

With that in mind, the state of house of representatives passed a very sensible bill yesterday, HB 4860, which the governor correctly embraced and said she would sign. The bill would use the last of the stimulus cash to replace the money the governor eliminated a couple of weeks ago, when revenues once again were lower than expected.

The bill also provides some, though not enough, money for school bus inspections. Most people don’t realize this, but in its zeal to balance the current budget without raising taxes, the legislature entirely eliminated any funding for school bus inspections.

I hope someone exposes who was the genius behind that if some bus’s brakes ever fail. Anyway, this bill would put about $800,000, a little more than half the inspection money back.

The bill also would restore the additional funding the governor cut from the so-called high-spending districts, some of which have lost as much as $600 a student. However, the house is on a little shakier ground here. The bill specifies that the $52 million the governor cut would be restored from the Michigan Future Fund.

That would be fine with me, except for one thing. There isn’t any money in the Michigan Future fund. We should find it some.

For if this state is to have a future, it depends on properly educating our kids. We might as well use the last of the stimulus money for that purpose, before somebody decides to spend it on landscaping the new state police headquarters, or something.

But in an astounding bit of ideological blockheadedness, the Republicans in the state senate are apparently opposed to this.

Matt Marsden, the mouthpiece for Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, called the proposal to spend this money on the schools “absolutely ridiculous.“ This is a bit strange, since his boss was loudly criticizing the governor a few days ago for making these cuts in the first place. Marsden said the house has $100 million from the Earned Income Tax Credit freeze bill that the Democrats refused to use.

That’s a bit like saying a hungry man should go get a sandwich in the middle of a minefield. That money would come from the state’s poorest taxpayers, and would be available only if the governor agrees to cut the business tax in a way certain to drive up the deficit.

Michelle Pugh, a parent of three kids in Utica, understands what’s at stake better than the lawmakers. “This is not right,“ she told the Detroit News yesterday. “This is about our kids.”

She said the legislature needs to get it together so that they don’t do further damage to our classrooms.

If I were her, I might consider letting my friendly local state senator know directly, and exactly, what I think.

Comments

[Thrasher]

I support spending the stimulus dollars but not on ducational budgets in the state given our state spends more than 12 billion dollars already for education...

WHERE IS THE YIELD?? I reject the tired notion and myth that money drives educational superior educational outcomes.. I reject the dependancy argument that quality educations depends on money...I embrace the notion that education can be achieved without spending billions of dollars on funding districts..

WE must defeat the link between money and competence it is a fiction that defeats the reality of effort .

[RT]

If quality education doesn't require money, what does it require?

Please support your generalized statements with some details.

[Thrasher]

The fundamental requirement of quality education begins with an attitude .

This attitude must value and worship the belief that being educated is a state of being and state of mind. it is an attitude which require superior effort and focus on the skills and ability to master whatever subject matter and academic endeavor.

A quality education also requires a collective contract between all of those in the educational system with a shared goal to attain superior skills and competency in every educational endeavor from reading, writing, math skills to the development of a set of principled values.

Being able to to master the skills of reading, writing, and math does not require the spending of over 12 billion dollars nor does it require massive school buildings, sports fields, pc, labs etc..

Quality has nothing to do with money...

[dan]

I'm afraid quality does have something to do with money. Text books require money. Classrooms that are not falling apart require money. Quality teachers require money. You're listing a bunch of luxuries when we're not even providing the funding for the basics- it's wishful thinking that we'll somehow wind up with more from less.