For the next few weeks, Progressive Massachusetts is highlighting aspects of our Shared Prosperity Agenda, having our members write their perspectives on why Education, Healthcare, Housing, Jobs and Wages, and Progressive Revenue are important to them.
For our first week, a team of committed activists is focusing on Education — Within five years, we want free, publicly funded education for all residents from pre-K through Community, Vocational, or Four-Year College, but a good first step would be universal, publicly funded pre-K available for all residents. This is part one of our three-part series on Education.
President John Kennedy once said “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.” Everyday, Massachusetts policy-makers have a choice: They can choose to act in creating economic prosperity and equality in the commonwealth by investing in Universal Pre-K and free Public Higher Education. Or they can do nothing, and forgo billions of dollars in economic growth.
The fact is investing in education is an economic issue. We all talk about the importance of investing in our children, but somehow this talk doesn’t translate into action. Somehow our policy makers have forgotten that when you invest in something, there can be a significant economic return.
Frankly, the biggest obstacle to investing in our children is short sighted thinking. If you ask for an honest answer from our politicians as to why we don’t have free public higher education they would say “We just don’t have the money.” That isn’t true. Raising revenue through progressive revenue reform, while difficult in the short term, will return more money through taxpayers in the long run through economic growth. Every tax dollar the government spends on education results in $4.50 in future tax revenue. That figure doesn’t even include the impact on the rest of the economy. Starting early by investing in Early Childhood Education yields eight dollars for every dollar spent.
By investing in the future of our children, we are essentially getting free money. And it’s not just our children who benefit. When they grow up, they spend their earnings, and invest them back into the local economy. By doing that everyone benefits. Mom and pop will be a little richer, as well as people who don’t have kids. Education and a better economy will also reduce the incarceration rate, at supports for public support, reducing the burden on taxpayers.
It’s time for Massachusetts lawmakers to choose.They take action and make the commonwealth a better place, while boosting the economy and state revenue as a result. Or lawmakers can squander the future of our children, our state checkbook, and our economy. We choose a brighter future.
See this on our blog and see the whole series here.
I suppose there are very few people, even libertarians (am I naive?), who think that we spend too much on education. The investment and ‘pay-off’ are too clear.
Legislators routinely say, “I support education”… but their commitment to austerity politics — tax cuts that benefit the wealthy, refusal to raise significant revenue except thru regressive taxes — really suggests otherwise.
We need progressive tax reforms so we can properly invest in education — and everything else that makes our Commonwealth strong and vibrant, safe and welcoming.
You’re probably right that few people, at least in Massachusetts, “think we spend too much on education.” But there are plenty of citizens – not just legislators – who think their own taxes are too high, or that teachers are overpaid (they’re not). Overrides fail all the time. Just last week Mayor Marty Walsh proposed a budget that would eliminate 200 teaching or staff positions from the BPS. That is not the way forward.
Universal Pre-K should be achievable, and it’s likely to come up in the legislature soon if we elect a Democratic governor. For public higher ed, I’d like to see more funding overall and more equitable funding between UMass Amherst and our community colleges. I’d be OK with some level of tuition accompanied by a generous sliding scale for need-based financial aid.
Separate from the number of dollars spent is the substance of our K-12 education policy. The order of the day is micromanagement through curriculum guidelines, excessive standardized testing, the infantilization of the teaching profession, and chipping away at traditional public schools by expanding charters, vouchers, you name it. We must win that battle of vision or the money spent won’t matter all that much.
The effect of many of our current policies is to make teaching an unattractive profession that people do for a few years in their 20s, when they cost less. The TFA model. That saves a lot of money but does nothing to ensure our kids are exposed to experienced and knowledgeable teachers. Teachers are not the enemy. They don’t need the threat of more sticks, including termination, to make them “try harder.”
There are plenty of people who think we spend too much on education – particularly when you discuss spending on poor districts. I have encountered many, many people who think one of a few things:
1) That spending “more” – meaning maybe 30-40% more per student – on poor districts is not right, usually because “those people aren’t paying any taxes”.
2) That spending “more” on kids who need help is not the right course of action because “those kids are never going to amount to anything anyway”, and that we should spend more on kids in wealthy districts to make them even better.
3) That increasing funding to schools that do not perform well is “rewarding failure”.
Massachusetts is among the top states in the country in education. That is despite the massive anchors we have from our poverty-concentrated districts. That is the new frontier for improving education. Spending 30% more – which effectively only reduces the class from 25 to 19 – on an impoverished school is not going to cut it.
Education is also a massive sorting tool being used to self-segregate residents. How many people concerned with education move to communities with “failing” schools? Nearly zero. They move to “education” type communities with “good schools” and they massively overpay to do this. It is not uncommon to see a $50-100k premium on the same house between two different communities, solely because of educational reputation.
There should be no such disparities in this state between communities based on education, period. Yet there is, at a massive level.