Republicans Aid Natural Adversaries

Campus Report ^ | February 27, 2008 | Malcolm Kline

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Republicans Aid Natural Adversaries

by: Malcolm A. Kline, February 27, 2008

Former U. S. House Majority Leader Richard Armey used to repeatedly point out that conservatives are optimists. They prove it time and time again at every level of government whether that optimism is warranted or not.

Case in point, speaking for the Republican majority in the lower chamber of the state assembly, Virginia delegate Jeff Frederick earnestly defended their increase in education spending, even though there is precious little research showing that where schools are concerned, more is better. “By increasing spending for K-12 public schools by $1.1 billion over the 2006-2008 Biennial Budget, the House plan pays teachers more; makes more funds available for school construction; and provides more total funding than the plans introduced by the Governor or approved by the Senate,” Frederick reports. “In total, the House plan devotes $193 million more than Governor Kaine proposed for K-12 public education and $68 million more than the Senate plan.”

“The House plan includes funding for the state’s share of a pay raise for public school teachers of 2% this year (the other plans don’t include pay raises this year), and rejected the Governor’s plan to cut school construction grants by $220 million.”

“ School construction is one of the things driving the Prince William school system’s budget, as well as our real-estate tax rates,” Frederick explains of the impact on his own district. “These cuts by the Governor and Senate would translate directly into a local property tax hike,” he argues.

But will a state spending increase translate into a local property tax cut? I won’t hold my breath.

It should be noted that the governor’s proposal contains one item ...

[snowrip]

Some republicans are optimists, and some are just sissies.

[Redbob]

What some call “optimism,” I call stupidity.

[CharlesWayneCT]

This isn’t increased spending to add cost per student. This is spending to build additional schools needed, because we have more students.

It’s been pretty conclusively shown that students learn better if they are actually in buildings. :-)

And while raising teacher salaries won’t make the students learn better, I don’t have a hard time giving teachers a 2% raise when inflation was more than that.

The house has cut funding for the expanded pre-k program.