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Monday, 02 May 2005 |
In Merrie Olde England, so the story goes, there were pipers—lute players—who lived by their music. They would go to fairs or similar venues and perform, secure in the knowledge that they would be paid by one of the many who had enjoyed the pleasure of the dance. This is thought to be the origin of “to pay the piper,” an adage that reminds us that if no one had come forward to pay the piper, the music would have stopped.
This elementary rule of the market seems to have escaped the members of Indiana’s General Assembly.
There are numerous examples of our elected representatives’ apparent belief in the possibility of lots of free lunches: we’ll pay for a new Colt’s stadium with gambling, not taxes. (Gambling is just a “tax” on poor people anyway—doesn’t count.) We’ll let “volunteers” make repairs to our Governor’s residence. (I’m sure none of those selfless entreprenuers will be doing business with state government during the rest of the Governor’s term.) We can indulge our bigotries at the same time we are increasing our economic development efforts. (Just ignore the research that says states with antigay policies lose jobs to states with more welcoming attitudes.) In sessions past, we have “gotten tough on crime” without demonstrating any great enthusiasm for funding new jails, or even fully funding the pensions of the police officers we hire to execute our strict new policies.
This session, we are being treated to pious exhortations about raising educational standards—at the same time we are cutting back dollars for school funding. In the same issue of the Star that quoted our legislative leaders on the importance of high standards and pedagogical rigor, there was a less prominent article illustrating the extent to which school systems in the state now depend on fundraising by parents and others to pay for instructional materials and educational resources that once were covered by budget allocations.
Of course, poorer school districts rarely have parents with either the time to engage in bake sales, or the money to donate to their local school system. And children in poorer districts will also take a disproportionate “hit” under the new funding formula, where the dollars will follow the child.
It sounds good—so many dollars per student. What could be fairer? There are only a few problems: it is a formula that advantages the fastest growing and most affluent suburban districts; it fails to take into account the special challenges of an urban system, where a wide variety of extra services are necessary to even begin to level the educational playing field. And it obscures the fact that the amount budgeted for education overall has been cut.
Our legislature is filled with (self-proclaimed) people of faith. They have faith that we can have our cake and eat it too—that we can pander to hate and still create jobs, improve public safety and get better schools without ever raising taxes.
Guess who’s going to pay the piper?
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