A Penny for Your Thoughts, and a New Renaissance

          The Baldwin County School System is facing a financial crisis not of its own making. It is a result of what every family in America is suffering from, inflation and a struggling economy. The school system is simply running out of money. There is a solution, and it is a wholly American.  We can vote and solve this crisis. 

            The "Penny Tax", that was passed some years ago as a limited budget measure, expires May 31, 2013. If we do not vote to extend it, the Baldwin County schools will lose $28 million, resulting in drastic reductions. We will lose bus drivers, special education aide positions, janitorial and maintenance staff, along with a good number of administrators, and indespensible teachers.   

            There is an inverse relationship that occurs when teachers are lost. As the numbers of teachers shrink, the number of students per classroom expands. This will result in the high teacher/student ratio to go even higher, further resulting in decreased quality of teaching. There will not be as much time to spend with individual students and struggling, marginal students may be lost.

            It gets worse. For the lack of a few pennies, four schools in the county will have to close, which will exacerbate the crowding situation and again, the teacher to student ratio will rise, and quality will drop. We cannot allow this to happen when it will cost only a few pennies to fix. Our school system has made great strides in the past few years and losing this penny will set us back further than we have gained.

            It is being argued that this penny is a tax increase. It is not. We are currently paying this penny, and the proposal, Baldwin County Amendment 2, will pick up where the former penny leaves off. It is a well-spent penny for our future.

            Whenever there is a proposal to fund schools, there are those who say, "I don't have kids. I shouldn't have to pay the tax." True, but you do have a future, and the professions and trades that you will use in that future are going to have to be educated. If you are looking for a good return on investment, invest in your future. Invest in our children. It is only a penny, and will pay dividends for generations.

            Our schools' superintendent, Alan T. Lee, sent an e-mail to parents of Baldwin County students addressing the question as to how we can afford the put a laptop computer into the hands of every high school student in the county when the system is having a financial crisis. To answer, I quote from that e-mail:

            "Please allow me to put our Digital Renaissance in perspective. Digital Renaissance is one percent of our district budget (computers, software, wireless, etc.). Digital Renaissance is two percent of what we spend to educate a student each year. (Remember, this school system spends $540 per student less than the state average.) The dollars we've invested in laptops would not begin to fill the gap of revenue should the penny not be extended. So how did we pay for the laptops? We've eliminated more than 80 central office jobs and returned those dollars to the classroom to support Digital Renaissance. Also, at my direction, I redirected dollars we were already budgeting for other programs to Digital Renaissance. Some question the timing of Digital Renaissance. As one parent told me, there is never a good time to buy a house or for that matter, to even have a child; conditions will never be "just right" to make sacrifices for our kids. We're empowering students right now to compete for the best college and career opportunities."
            "To put Digital Renaissance in perspective, to place a computer in the hands of a student costs us $202 per year, a small amount when compared to what textbooks cost. Further, our students recognize that the laptops are a tool that will allow them to get the education they need to compete on a global scale. Most assuredly, we cannot continue to educate our students using yesterday's practices if we want them to land the best jobs."

            Pennies add up, and dollars are hard to come by, but the alternative is bleak. For example, when health issues arise, do we as a community want to have a scarcity of doctors because we wouldn't spend the pennies ten years earlier?

            The school system has handled the money we've allowed them to have very responsibly, and have earned the right to continue to provide a competitive education for our young people. You ask, "A penny for future thinkers, and for a renaissance?" I answer, that is cheap when you compare it to the one that took us out of the dark ages and into one of the most creative periods of our history. Let's fund this one on November 6 by voting "Yes" to the County Amendment. I'll pitch in my pennies, and I'll win more than if I pitched them against a wall in a game of chance.