On Brookline

Two things are clear from Tuesday’s vote on a bailout ballot by the Brookline Selectmen. One, town government knows it would lose in an up or down vote to cover their so called structural deficit. And second, those pushing for a World Languages program in the schools got screwed by the selectmen and the school committee.

Why, it’s almost as if the selectmen and school committee polled voters before putting together the ballot.

The first part of the bailout ballot funds town services and a longer school day at $5.4 million. The second part is $800 thousand for the language program (nahgunnahappen). With the former, I’m willing to bet that we’re going to hear all about a longer school day and not the mismanagement of town finances as requiring an override. And that tells you all you need to know about the trouble we’re in.

Do Brookline students need a longer school day? Gee, by all assessments kids in Brookline are performing at rates well above average. The longer day is needed to…?

Anyone who has taught knows that the length of instruction is inconsequential to the quality. If a teacher really believes they don’t have enough time for instruction, let them give 20 minutes more homework. If it’s a matter of paying teachers more, find the money from the $6 million in administrative salaries.

But the longer school day is a red herring dragged along with the town bailout, so as to take voters off the scent of the real question, which is this: Do you want to give this town government millions more in tax dollars in order that they can continue their reign of error?

I didn’t think so. And neither, apparently, do those in town government.

Update: Remember, a longer school day is voluntary. We don’t have to do it. And this business about meeting the state’s requirement for time spent in school, as I understand it, applies to 7th and 8th graders (they’re on an elementary schedule).

All I can say is that the best thing anti-override forces have going for them is that the pro camp will be run by the same people who brought us the CPA tax surcharge disaster. In that case, the distortions were mind-numbing — the school renovations that didn’t qualify, the miscalculations on proceeds, the sky is falling rhetoric.

Can’t wait to see what they come up with on the override. I bet it’ll be good.