Tiverton Citizens for Change

It took me a day to work through my unexpectedly negative reaction to news that the Budget Committee had effectively proposed level funding of the school department next year. (With decreases in state aid likely, the leveled municipal funding probably represents a substantial cut.) What finally brought my emotional sense into focus was this chart, from a letter in which Budget Committee Chairman Jeff Caron requested information from the district (PDF):

Paradoxically, I found this image clarifying not because it correctly identifies the problem that TCC has been seeking to address, but because it’s not really a fair representation of that problem. Any senior at Tiverton High School would hopefully spot the first problem with the chart — namely, that the scale of the secondary axis is artificially constrained to make the drop in enrollment look much more precipitous than it has been. Making the axes more comparable renders thus:

That’s still not quite representative, though, because the appropriation isn’t adjusted for inflation. Correcting that omission yields this final picture:

The point of this exercise isn’t to deny that Mr. Caron has correctly identified a problem or that the town’s taxpayers would be justified in demanding that school budgets cease to increase as enrollment decreases. The point is that the imbalance has been gradual, and adjustments can be so, as well.

Yes, the School Committee was utterly reckless in jumping into the recession up to its shoulders by approving a huge retroactive raise for teachers. Yes, Superintendent Rearick should have recommended using federal “stimulus” money to create a buffer for future shortfalls, rather than recommending that the district spend it. Those are very good reasons to change the makeup of the committee and turn around the calculation that perpetually rewards adults while squeezing programs and resources that benefit the students.

However, the nearly two thousand Tiverton children currently in the system will never have another childhood. What we offer them provides the only collection of memories that they’ll ever have of “my hometown.” We’re not only defining the Tiverton community, for them, but the very idea of community itself. Like it or not, we have a responsibility to take that into account, and we shouldn’t weight it lightly.

A flatlined budget doesn’t teach elected officials and administrators a lesson. It creates factions. It divides the town into those with school-aged children versus those without (and those who send their children elsewhere for schooling). Tiverton, the state of Rhode Island, and the United States of America face a dire need to redefine elementary and secondary education, but it must be done with the understanding that we’re not changing the production of widgets in a factory, but providing a crucial, one-time-only service to growing generations.

If the teachers’ union fails to acknowledge the inequity of its remuneration in combination with the state of the economy, then the financial town meeting should adjust downward accordingly. If the school committee and union seek to bind voters’ hands with another reckless contract, then level funding would be an appropriate response. In any case, factionalism shouldn’t be the defining characteristic of the docket with which we start.

Reducing total compensation (salary and benefits) across the board by four or five percent from this year’s level and making some investments in facilities, technology, and programs would result in a budget increase of one or two percent. It would also begin to turn the community’s approach to education around, rather than splitting it in two.

But that’s just my opinion.