On Brookline

I guess when you’ve been called out on a false claim the best thing to do is to not claim any success at all, as does Deb Goldberg in her latest advertisement focusing on education. As a selectman, given the statutory independence of a school committee, education financing (sans capital expenses) is not entirely within your brief.

Even then, a selectman has more power over matters education than, say, a Lieutenant Governor might have. So when Deb Goldberg says in her recent spot that she wants to “invest in education”, this bears some dredging of the record.

With that, Goldberg’s passion for education investment appears to be the product of an epiphany experienced on the trail. For instance, in 2002 Brookline Town Meeting received a school department budget experiencing considerable financial pressure. In his budget message of that year, Brookline Superintendent of Schools Richard Silverman wrote:

“We have been unable to include much needed library materials and technology system-wide, and updated maps and globes for all classrooms.”

That’s right, ten years after the fall of the Soviet Union Brookline classrooms were without updated maps and globes. I don’t remember Deb Goldberg saying that this cannot stand because “education is the key to our future.”

No, Deb was busy on a capital plan that allocated $500 thousand for the Town’s golf course and cut $25,000 in classroom furniture upgrades. There’s more on Goldberg’s school follies here.

If this is how you see education investment, then “Go for the Gold.”

Note: see this earlier post on Goldberg and education.