On Brookline

To hear some of the Proverriders tell it, the May 6th Proposition 2.5 ballot is about quality education for Brookline students. Would that that were true.

It may be about a $1 million pay raise for teachers. And it may be an attempt to give the schools superintendent another $800 thousand to launch a sure-to-fail World Languages program (and then spend as he likes after). But it’s not about quality education.

If we were interested in improving the quality of education in Brookline we’d be addressing the so-called “equity gap” between children of the haves and children of the have-nots. We’d make closing the gap our chief priority. If we cared about quality education.

But we aren’t. And we don’t.

See, those who live on the margin don’t have a constituency in our educational institutions. They don’t give money to the 21st Century Club or fold napkins for the PTO meetings that address “Getting Your Kid into College.” They don’t know what to think when they hear the Brookline HS administration say that, “BHS is the best school in America.” Even though that hasn’t been their experience, and so it must be hopeless for their son or daughter.

I can’t see why we’d fund World Languages when more than a few of our students struggle with the native tongue. I can’t see that a longer school day does other than give the equity gap more time to widen.

The sad reality is this. Brookline town government has brought a ballot question to the voters that succeeds in giving more to those who need it least. There can’t be a ballot question to fund initiatives directed at the equity gap. Because people who serve in town government are there to serve people just like them.

And those falling through the gap sure don’t look like a lot of people in town government.

Update: Today’s mail featured a lovely catalog from the Brookline School Department on its many successes. Looks like a pretty flush organization to me. I know a bit about these materials (they’re called collateral) and that’s not a low budget piece being sent two weeks prior to an override vote.