In a previous incarnation as a Mother of five children under seven, I found myself up to my neck in local politics because I wanted my children to grow up in a vibrant healthy community. They got pretty good at rounding up neighborhood kids willing to pile into the “way back” of the old station wagon (pre-Nader seatbelts) and be dropped off at the end of long streets to drop off flyers. Election day was always a family high holiday spent standing at the polls. I was not surprised to see Chairworman Balser got started as a “concerned Mom’. I bet there are a lot of stories out there in BMG land, from the “way back” as well as the drivers seat.
Please share widely!
They [the mothers] want their kids to have the private school experience paid for by others.
I mis-remembered: “They [the mothers] are obsessed with what they want for their kids, which is a private school experience that they don’t have to pay for themselves.”
Funding your local school system so that it doesn’t have to lay off teachers each summer is the “private school experience”? Which part, the part where everyone is allowed to attend public school regardless of income level or the part where we have the gall to fund federally mandated programs?
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p>Could you define the “private school experience” for us? Cause most of the public schools I’ve seen are short on the kitschy uniforms but it turns out they do still require funding, you know, to run and all.
Create the strawman: an imaginative and sympathetic situation that may or may not exist:
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p>The lay-them-off-in-the-summer-hire-them-in-the-fall technique says more about the unemployment system than it does the education system and prop 2 1/2. The teachers don’t miss one day of school, or one day of pay, but receive unemployment benefits.
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p>Why even the Mass Board of Education recognizes that teachers in some districts may face layoffs, but blames the problem on decreased enrollment, and doesn’t mention the budget shortfall. Shouldn’t decreased enrollment mean reduced budgets?
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p>The articles about Newton. Let’s look at that public school: Referendum passes for a $141 million construction, that immediately jumped to $154 million after the vote, and has now climbed to $186 million, the most expensive high school in all of Massachusetts. But’s that’s a bit off-point.
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p>Let’s start with the Tiger’s Loft, a student run restaurant; a Simulated Outdoor Area gym (what’s wrong with the real outdoors?); gotta have that the photography room and fully loaded darkroom. (Darkroom? For what? Isn’t film dead?).
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p>Then there’s the quaint little floor they call Main street with it’s Library, the Little Theater, where the little dears conduct their five yearly plays, their improv group, and the Fingerpaint Players (federally mandated no doubt) that is the traveling troupe.
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p>Gotta have that indoor pool and gyms (more than one!)
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p>Why the school has to have it’s own staffed Graphic Arts department for all those neat poster and prints and banners. We have classes on video production, architecture.
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p>Don’t forget sports: indoor track, outdoor track, cross country, basketball, tennis, lacrosse, soccer, volleyball, swimming, diving.
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p>But you’re right. No kitschy uniforms.
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p>Look. Build whatever you want for ‘public education’. I, the taxpayer is happy, enthusiastic really to support public school. But what I have described above is a reason to vote against the override.
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p>As Ernie Boch III once said (paraphrasing): give the kids of Newton a piece of chaulk and a tent and they’ll do better on the MCAS than the students of inner city boston.
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p>They money on that school is rediculous.
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A ways back. We cut wood shop and sold off the machines for funding.
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p>And as far as the straw men.. I think you’re using a bit more straw than me because if you look at your local municipal budget you’d find that the health insurance and COLA increases for 1 year of teacher salary rollover is probably bigger than all of the “extras” you’re complaining about put together.
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p>This isn’t about “private school education”, this is about “education” as in having teachers in the classroom who need paychecks.
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p>And, yeah, I’ve heard that line before. I’d support this 3 million dollar override to keep all our teachers if it wasn’t for the fact that the school district is spending like 50 grand that I disagree with. Or I’d support the new school that we desparately need if it wasn’t for the auditorium they’re including at 1/50 of the total cost. Right.
I was referring to real layoffs without rehiring that many school districts who can’t pass overrides have been doing over the last few years.
They’re not in that bad of shape having passed operating budget overrides recently.
There haven’t been any significant permanent teacher layoffs in years in Mass.
Ok, you want to talk about Tyngsboro? It’s education budget rose just 3%. Great job. And, I bet the eduction stats won’t suffer at all.
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p>I’m not talking about Tyngsboro. The article was about Newton. It’s construction cost increased by $31 million in a matter of months and now the ‘concerned mothers’ are seeking a $30 million override for their private school.
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p>My comment isn’t about rise health insurance (it’s rising), or teacher salary rolloever (BTW, you’re the one who lamented the ‘unemployed teachers’ and it turns out being an employed teacher is a double dipping free ride), or whether or not the amorphous 2 1/2 opponent would or would not ever vote yes on 2 1/2.
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p>It’s about those advocating for a taj mahal on someone else’s dime when a high school might be a better choice.
I’m not sure that teachers in this situation get unemployment benefits, because I believe the new year starts well before the benfits would kick in.
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p>This happens mostly when the local budget isn’t done in June, and there is, formally, zero dollars available for September. The rehire happens when the budgets are adopted.
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p>I’m not sure why this would be true. I know only a few years ago, the MTA President Kathleen Bourdeau (sp?) was asked if the fire-rehire, while getting Unemployment double dip was inappropriate and she answered no, triggering a bit of controversy.
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p>If you’re a teacher laid off in say May, and immediately apply, you’ll probably get benefits before the end of June. Even if the budget is approved in June, the town wouldn’t have to extend offers to rehire until a month or 2 later. Benefits would continue. No?
I’ve only seen the layoff come in early July–i.e., budget time. The school year rarely ends until the last week of June–the teachers have a week beyond the last day of classes–, and never in May. Then the next year starts the week before Labor Day. So that’s 6-7 weeks of potential layoff.
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p>I was always under the (perhaps mistaken) that unemployment benefits do not commence immediatly upon layoff, but require the unemployed person to be unemployed for some period of time before benefits are available.
It’s not about Newton.
You’re right! Damn, and I was all fired up about Newton too.
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p>Imagine my embarrassment.
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p>Natick presents a tougher situation. While Newton was rediculous, this situation to me presents a more difficult choice.
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p>Contrast Newton with, say, Tyngsborough upthread. Tyngsborough had a 3% increase in spending; Natick has nearly 7% with 6.2% forcast increase for next year.
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p>If I had kids going to school in Natick, no question, I might naively vote ‘yes’ on the override, because I’d figure they’d go to a nice, new, fully loaded school on everyone’s dime. It’s enough incentive I guess to get the moms on the street.
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p>But looking closely at the override, the school’s looks like a smokescreen, IMHO. The debt exclusion on Wilson Middle School is only $937K yet the 2 1/2 folks are asking for $3.9 million.
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p>The rest? The lion’s share is, per usual, employee wages plus fringe up 7.24%.
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p>Is it so wrong to expect the employee of Natick to eat more of that rising cost? The Natick schools cover up to 90% of an employee’s health insurance.
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p>Regardless, the 2 1/2 override, if successful, will be sucked up by contractually agreed upon salary increases. So, if you’re a teacher, vote yes. But, if you’re a parent, I’m not so sure that higher wages and fringe paid for by higher taxes convert to better students.
with regard to her own position: it is teaching the kids to be selfish by thinking that they shouldn’t be concerned about other people.
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p>No, it teaches kids to consider two, or more, points of view. On one side of the street are these front paged mothers, advocating for more money to fund the most expensive high school in massachusetts.
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p>On the opposite side of the street are those who think the expenditure is too lavish, too much. And out of control.
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p>Civic engagement isn’t about blindly adopting one position, or the other.
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p>If you vote against 2 1/2 you’re not concerned about other people. What tripe!
whatever the interpretation of the specific goals they currently have (anti-selfishness, etc), it is great that these parents are involving their kids in the discussions. that is setting a wonderful example. however, i find it so disheartening that they perpetuate the stereotype of daddy=work, mommy=home by labeling it “mothering” and not “parenting”. i guess the lesson these kids get from daddy is capitalistic greed, the distant male, and sex-based division of labor? i’m sad that that is apparently still the only reality in natick.
The reality is that, for most families, it is either (i) not feasible to have only one working parent, or (ii) if it is feasible, it is feasible only for the mother.
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p>While this situation may be indicative of the prgress that the feminist movement has yet to make, I’m not sure that acknowledging that most of the people with the time to devote to Prop 2 1/2 overrides are mothers, not fathers.
that they couldn’t dig up even one “soccer dad” for the story. i guess this story hits home in so many ways. For one, we just had a conversation with our niece yesterday about her future (she is in HS). she wants to be a surgeon, but has been trained to think that a straight woman can’t have a family and be a surgeon too. gee, i wonder where she got the idea that men can never be the primary care-givers for the kids? well sadly, she got it by sheer observation and no one bothers to contradict the apparent “truth” of sex roles. the story we’re commenting on here included.
I mentioned the same thing to my wife, Laurel. Even though I do believe there is a larger group of women fighting for these overrides, I think the paper was clearly looking to do a soccer mom like profile. I was wondering where the token Dad was.
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p>I agree and disagree with your take on your neice’s situation. More and more women are finding it hard to balance work and family and it’s not just because Dad’s don’t pick up the slack. EVERYONE has to work more to keep up these days.
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p>What little I know tells me that becoming a doctor and then surgeon involves a very long and difficult road. No doubt a dedicated dad can help care for the family, but I’m guessing the divorce rate for surgeon’s is above average. It can be done, but even careers that get off the ground quicker and demand less cause many women to put off having children, that wonderful wife of mine included.
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p>It’s not just about care being given the children. A significant factor is all that goes with a 9 month pregnancy and even a very short period of time off after birth. Especially if a woman wants to have more than one child and not spread them out a lot.
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p>No realigning of gender roles will change that last part.
Mothering and fathering aren’t the same things, different only in the sex of who’s doing it (in spite of some sexist dictionaries that define it that way). A male parent out there advocating for his children would have been mothering too, it’s about the act of helping your child. A female parent staying home and saying that her kid isn’t more important than other kids, all that matters is that they survive to adulthood and the rest is up to them, would be fathering her child. Someone’s biological sex doesn’t determine their parenting style.
that kids learn by example. the example set in the article, by not mentioning any fathers, is that moms take care of homey stuff, dads are…elsewhere. we both know that that doesn’t have to be the case, but this story is just another subtle message that the sex-based segregation of rolls in the majority of american households is the “right” way.
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p>i agree with you completely that sex doesn’t have to determine parenting style. but sadly, we usually let it. in what percentage of families that you know personally do the dads stay home with the kids (and not because they just happen to be unemployed right now, but by choice)? i can count such families i know of on one hand. two families, to be exact.
And you assumed that word as used because there were mostly women out there protesting. You said that it was simply “parenting”. But I’m saying that pressuring the community to pay more so that your child can have more stuff is mothering, no matter what the sex is of the person asking. Lots of men mother too now, which does exactly what Barbara Anderson said it does, and hardly anyone fathers, but that’s fine, because fathering is all about not doing rather than doing.
an interesting relationship with your father.
As an at-home father, I’ve spent time doing exactly the same campaigning. For kids and seniors, both.
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p>(The problem isn’t just Prop 2-1/2, it’s the property tax itself. See numerous other posts here on BMG)
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p>My kids, when they were a bit younger, spent more time at democratic town committee meetings, senior center building committee meetings, library trustees meetings, and on other campaigns and causes than some committee members did.
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p>It is a wonderful experience for them: to see what democracy is all about, to see people work and struggle together to get things done, to learn how to “do democracy”. Whether you like Prop 2-1/2 or not, it has forced us to have these discussions, debates, and campaigns.
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p>These campaigns were/are a great opportunity to meet and work with some very passionate, committed, intelligent, and articulate people (yeah, mostly women). These women probably (cuz we do in our town) also spend even more time and energy raising tens (hundreds) of thousands of dollars annually for their kids and schools. I have.
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p>That Newton school does sound over the top; the product of a building committee gone wild. Maybe not. Some people think our new senior center’s extravagant. Not the seniors who use it.
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p>It’s not necessarily about “extravagant” spendthrift school committees. Medfield has one of the highest property tax bills in the state. At the same time we have very low per pupil spending. Why? Because we’ve got more kids than trees. You can’t fit 10 pounds of dirt in a 5 pound bag. We tried.
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p>Next time you need a cop or a fireman, or a book from the Library, call Barbara.
The headline that should have been. Not the Globe’s. I’ve met a lot of activist Dad’s out there in Override land. I guess it was too cute to resist for the Globe and me too. Brought back a lot of memories of my introduction to suburban politics, where, interestingly enough, was dominated by suburban Dads.