Believe it Only When I See It

Over the holiday weekend my brother, who is a devoted republican, asked me if I believed that our new governor would reduce the salaries of educational administration in order to balance the budget without cutting support staff or teachers. I told him that I would believe it when and if I see it.

I am sure that the lobbyists have already been whispering in her ear about how we are not needed to help what one lobbyist called the “little brown children.” I found myself pointing a finger in his fat drunk face as I told him off for that remark. He may not use those exact words but the result lobbyists desire are just the same no matter what the language they might use to convince our elected representatives that our children in all their many colors don’t deserve the best education that we can afford in this state.

Cutting from the classroom like some legislatures along with the ERB board will only make us 50th in the country when it comes to education. Giving School Presidents big shiny costly toys and then explaining them away as needed is not the type of reports that we need to hear from the local press. No one should be getting new trucks or large new buildings at a time when we cannot afford to pay the salaries of current teachers and support staff who work in those glass castles. More vice presidents and administrators getting $100,000 salaries and calling it reorganizing is nothing more then lies sugar coated as reform. Rather then cutting programs offered to students maybe cuts should go through the top educational administration level in all of our school systems.

I had cancer and had to take eight months off without pay as I was treated so why should a president of our largest university be treated any different? It is not that I don’t feel for him as a person. I just think that family medical leave should be paid for all or for no one at all because that is only the fair way to provide that type of benefit.

Maybe educational administration in this state should take the Bill Gates pledge and start giving money back to the needy in this state. They can start by firing all their high paid lobbyists and doing the job themselves to start with so that I don’t get the chance in the future to point my finger in anyone else’s face. Must admit that it felt good.