Emanuel, once a Barack Obama campaign maestro, is now the
Mayor of shoot’em up Chicago, a failed Democratic city in a failing state.
Politics, in both our state and nation, has become a
Darwinian struggle among political insiders in which the most fit rise to the
top. And the fittest are those whose narratives, partly fiction, are the most
compelling; the narratives themselves occasionally have only a remote
connection to a) the truth, and b) objective reality; i.e. the real-world
consequences of prevailing political programs.
Consider the following headline: “Budget Crisis Prompts Malloy To Weigh A Shift In Education Aid." No doubt Connecticut is suffering both a
budget crisis, and a crisis in education. Any number of questions immediately
present themselves. Why do we have a budget crisis? Who is
responsible for the crisis? Will solutions proposed by the narrative-makers
solve the crisis, or are they political palliatives? The same questions apply
to educational spending.
The cautious reader
will note that it is the “budget crisis” caused by Connecticut Democrats that
has “prompted” the most progressive governor in Connecticut history to offer a
plan that will further progressivize educational spending, a coincidence that is, shall we say, more
than coincidental. If there were no budget crisis, Democrats would have had to
invent one so as to be able to progressivize educational funding and move tax
dollars at its distribution point from so-called rich towns to so-called poor
towns; pointedly, to cities that Democrats traditionally have depended upon for
vote and campaign funding. Lucky for Democrats, they were able to produce a
budget crisis that now may be utilized in a campaign narrative, partly
fictional, in which those who caused the temporary “crisis” are portrayed as wonder-working
heroes of a drama they do not wish to waste.
Here is the Hartford
Courant reporting on Governor Dannel Malloy’s use -- misuse? -- of plenary
powers. The story quotes Malloy: “We will reevaluate how we’ll be distributing
aid to communities in the coming weeks to make sure we honor our constitutional
requirement for education in the state of Connecticut… That may mean that some
districts will have to receive less money so that other districts will receive
an appropriate amount of money that would honor the constitutional requirement.’’
These few remarks,
made by a governor who has been invested with anti-democratic plenary powers, should
awaken critical instincts among reporters whose business it is to question
false narratives. How did it happen that a chief of state had been
unconstitutionally invested with plenary powers which, in a functioning
republican government, are distributed among three separate but equal branches
of government? Does the constitutional provision to which Malloy points
necessitate a progressive scheme to shift funds from so-called “rich” to
so-called “poor” towns? The provision cited by Malloy merely says that
“children in Connecticut shall have a free education.” What is the current imbalance
of funding per student in rich and poor towns? Does a student in Hartford, for
instance, receive substantially less money for educational purposes than a
student in, say, New Canaan? Hartford school District per-pupil spending from all revenue sources -- Federal,
State and local – in 2015 was $19,342; New Canaan was $19,171.
Most importantly, is
there a direct connection between per-pupil expenditures and quality of
education? If there is such a connection, how did it happen that Catholic
schools in Hartford, drawing upon the same pool of students as public
schools, were able to provide their charges with an education that was equal or
superior to that provided by tax supported public schools? The past tense is
necessary here because the last parochial school in the city, much to the
dismay of Hartford parents whose sons and daughters attended Catholic schools,
closed months ago.
Questions such as
these are not being answered because they are not being asked.
Malloy began his
first term as governor by introducing measures that, if conscientiously followed,
might have marginally improved education in urban areas. The centerpiece of the
Malloy program, quickly dismantled by an aggressive education lobby,
involved the creation and enforcement of standards that would reward successful
teachers and weed out unsuccessful teachers. Initially, Malloy had proposed to link tenure to job performance, a redoubt he soon abandoned under fire. It is one thing to move bad
students into good schools, quite another to move money from good to bad
schools on the dubious assumption that there is a direct causal connection between
money spent and a quality education.
Malloy’s current progressive
ploy is a political rather than a pedagogical gambit. Making Hartford great
again by shifting educational dollars from New Canaan no doubt will
purchase votes for other Democrats from Connecticut’s powerful public education
lobby. But it will not procure a quality education for students in major cities
in Connecticut that, for half a century and more, have been ruled by the usual
Democratic Party hegemon. The real educational lesson to be drawn here is that votes
matter to progressives more than kids.
Comments