Texas public schools don't need more money to waste

Dallas Morning News | Lynn Woolley:

“If schools really hadn't gotten significant increases and if they didn't waste money like drunken sailors, we taxpayers would obviously want to do our part. But before the soaking begins, would the Legislature please take a look at how our money is being spent?”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Anyone who compares our public school teachers with drunken sailors probably isn't open to reason, but Mr Woolley's extremist views should not go unchallenged. Mr Woolley's prescription for controlling spending on public schools consists of:

• Quit educating large numbers of children in Texas. Even many native Texans, American citizens, would get the heave-ho from our public schools if their parents entered the country illegally. Quit educating children in our state and you can use those tax dollars saved, and much more, on building more and more jails. Texans don't want that.
• Quit providing classrooms with computers, calculators, audio-visual equipment, science labs, maybe even air conditioning; and quit offering band, drama, swimming, and other enrichment programs. Mr Woolley wants to return spending to what it was after World War II, when most public schools could not afford much more than desks, blackboards and books. Texans don't want that.
• Quit paying superintendents. Mr Woolley bemoans the "rock-star contracts loaded with perks that most of us could never imagine." His example? A car allowance for a superintendent. First, most of us can imagine car allowances, Mr Woolley. Enough occupations that involve lots of driving do come with car allowances that imagining them isn't difficult at all. Second, rock stars, even CEOs of comparable businesses in the private sector, typically make much more than the superintendent of a public school system in Texas. Third, that car allowance has since been discontinued. The savings don't make a dent in the problem. Texans do want our school administrators to be thrifty, but Mr Woolley is wrong to imply that cutting car allowances and paid vacations for superintendents is going to solve the school funding crisis.

The bottom line? Polls show a majority of Texans want to see more money for education. That's not a sign of uninformed voters fooled by myths. That's a sign of informed voters finally getting fed up with the poor state of education in Texas.