A couple of months ago my wife and me, the case manager of the school where my son goes to, and the case manager of the district where we live had our annual IEP (Individualized Education Program) meeting in which we go over the plans for what Ian will be trained and/or educated during the next school year.
Due to the fact that there was an issue with the 20 hours that the district has paid for the last 8 o 9 years we had to go to mediation. Now we are not talking about thousands of dollars, we are talking about around one thousand dollars.
So two weeks ago we had our mediation. Our next door neighbor is our attorney, she has for quite some time and we have been very happy. The district hired a very tough attorney. They probably spent more on the attorney than what that it would have cost to pay for the hours in august that he receives as re-enforcement. We decided not to pursue any legal action because the benefits would not have justified the cost of it.
This leaves a bitter taste in our mouths. The districts position is that they don’t have to go any further than what to law says.
What I find amazing is that the district has only one regional school shared by three towns with a superintendent, a principal, a vice-principal and a business administrator, all bureaucrats with high incomes. The superintendent makes $120,000, the principal makes over $133,000, the vice-principal over $115,000 and the business administrator makes $80,000. That is for the proposed budget 2010-2011. There are only 836 students under the umbrella of the school. That should insult most people’s intelligence. Without counting teachers we are already spending $448,000. That does not give those students anything. I can find $1,000 for my son’s 20 hours very easily right there.
The new Governor that the citizens of this state voted for, the flagship of the Republican Party, somebody who campaigned under the promise of not cutting teachers, has decided to do away with this promise and has gone after the teachers viciously. Just in Paterson almost 900 will be made dispensable as of July 01. This will only force more kids per classrooms, in a system that is already over burdened. Going after teachers that make $45,000 will not resolve the budget issues. There are many other places to cut. We have too many layers of government, too many bureaucrats that don’t produce anything.
Through my job as a realtor I have been exposed to people who live on section 8, and one of the institutions that coaches, protects them, the Passaic County Public Housing. We are not helping people by providing free or assisted rent. Many of the people that I have met are, in the words of Winston Churchill, disingenuous about the people that will live in the house. They only mention a wife with two small kids, and many times they have a husband or a lover living in the house, grown kids in age for living, all living at the taxpayers’ expense. I am a liberal who believes in a second, and third chance, but when we have people living who for many years at the expense of others, with excuses for not working, and/or not being truthful about their present marital conditions, they become a burden to the rest of us, and because of them we end up losing valuable resources that could be put to good use.
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I'm not sure just what, in the post above, you consider to be the right and the wrong priorities? Are you simply suggesting that money spent in Section 8 housing would be better directed to IEP?
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree, but think the problem of priorities in more nuanced. Every person has a right to appropriate education. But every person has a right to food, clothing and shelter. There is fraud in both the education and housing systems, as in the justice and other sectors of the public arena. Some of the fraud in Section 8 is rooted in the reality that we are genetically programmed to survive, and a certain proportion of our population has learned to survive as best they can, though that often entails smudging legal boundaries. All that aside, you know that Georgia and I are anxious that Ian get optimal educational preparation for life. We won't resist paying higher taxes if that is required for equity and fairness.