John Boehner's School

Do you know where John Boehner lives? West Chester, Ohio, a quick-growth area just north of Cincinnati. And unlike some of his colleagues in Congress, including his neighbor just to the west, Dick Luger, Boehner actually lives in his district where he was elected to represent. 

Despite Boehner’s presence, things are not all unicorns and lollipops in West Chester. Their school district, Lakota Schools, is one failed levy away from going into emergency management, meaning the state of Ohio will run things for the school district. So, what does an upscale, burgeoning school district, where the median household income is nearly double that of the avg Ohio household, do when faced w/ such a predicament? Austerity, of course, cutting teachers and programs. According to an AP piece (“School District Slashes $10.5M, 141 Jobs” The Canton Repository. by Dan Sewell. 30 April 2012.), Lakota will cut 141 jobs, mostly teachers. This district, however, is not alone in budget problems as two of three districts in Ohio face shortfalls.  And school funding issues aren't a new thing here.

As you may know, Ohio has been funding its schools unconstitutionally for years, even though the DeRolph Decisions of the '90s decreed a more equitable solution be found. The primary problem remains an over-reliance on property tax, forcing citizens to continually renew levies and support new ones with already strained revenues in many communities. But that shouldn't be the problem in West Chester--the money part. It is quite wealthy (it was cited as one of the best places to live as recently as 2005), yet their new teachers, who are paid about 35K/yr to educate the rich kids of West Chester/Liberty Township, couldn't even find a place to rent if he or she wanted to live in the district where he or she taught. This modest starting salary and a failure to support its schools does seem to reveal a real disconnect between philosophy and reality that is so prevalent nowadays.

I'm guessing that the very wealthy families there aren’t terribly worried because their kids are going to private schools; the old-timers who resent the new development have already raised their kids, they reason, and being Ohioans, they’ve undergone that special indoctrination that all taxes are bad, all the time (let’s call it the Grover Norquist Contagion).

So, if there's plenty of money there then what is it? It's really a manifestation of a philosophy or a belief system that seems to say that I'll worry about mine, you worry about yours, which is apparently the dominant theory of Republicans and the adolescent-like Libertarians. Never mind that the majority of West Chester voters probably attended public schools themselves. Probably drive on the public highway system. Maybe have even taken a trip to a National Park--all things that were paid for by the collective good will and hard-earned tax dollars of their fellow Americans over many years, a system that leveled the playing field for the middle class and saw our greatest economic prosperity throughout the middle portions of the 20th century, all of which began to erode about thirty years ago.  

Contemporary Republican philosophy is based on faith and abstraction: the Confidence Fairy, the Invisible Hand of the Free Market; Trickle Down; High Inflation Boogie Man to just name a few. Yet, when talking about things like, say, providing money to states for infrastructure, then suddenly R's become Mr. McGoo, and they can't see anything in front of their faces (Government can't create jobs!).

The current Republican Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, plans to tackle the school-funding issue next year (probably been too busy w/ SB5), but like most Republicans, he offers more of the same; stuff we have seen for at least the last decade--tax cuts and calls for austerity (plus Kasich's special touch--the statewide yard sale that is privatization). Please tell me how these same flawed approaches will rectify things? How will putting more people out of work help the economy? What of the long-term implications for an impaired education? 

In addition to weakening--if not wrecking--public education, current unemployment would be closer to 7.0% instead of being over 8.0% if the government would bring back the workers (government employees, teachers, etc) who were laid off since the Lesser Depression began nearly four years ago. France and Greece are fed up with austerity, and we should be, too. We don't have historical models where austerity has worked here, but we do have evidence that stimulus by the government does work , not as a replacement but simply as its name states--a stimulus--until the private sector can catch up (see The New Deal; see American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, whose introduction directly correlates with a drop in unemployment).

Now, some folks will tell you we don't have an option; we have to cut these teachers in order to balance the books. At what point do we lose sight of the very reason we have governments and public education in the first place?  Seems like right about now. John Boehner, although not quite the idealogue as some of his colleagues in the House, would seem to have as much influence as anyone within the party as the Speaker of the House. When he doesn't intercede on behalf of passing a school levy in his own district, what does this tell you? Quality public education is dead to him and the other Republicans. If a community like West Chester is willing to sacrifice the learning of its children, then the party has left behind its people; it's what's truly is broken. This is politics that has completely forgotten its reason for its very existence.