Ken Nelson

Trenton, Michigan has a problem… they have a $26 million dollar budget but need to cut $3 million from it due to cuts in state assistance.

Here is the first 4 or their budget cut ideas:

• Ask the teacher’s union for a pay decrease
• Eliminate all bus service.
• Make athletics fully pay to play.
• Pay to play or reasonable rate and maybe a percent of a cost per program.
• Eliminate middle school sports as travel, make them all intramural and have high school students or parents volunteer to coach teams.

I’ve checked a twice now and I didn’t see administrative cuts on the list. Principals, Superintendents, IT staff, so forth. 

And much of the list is just ways to raise more money.  Or they drop, drastically, service, without prioritizing what is important.

So, no, I’m not impressed.

What would I do?

I’d sell the schools to private owners who contracted to provide free schooling to my residents.  I’d include a generous lease on all current facilities. The lease would encourage micro-schools owned by teachers that shared the facilities. And I’d let anybody open a school in town, thus keeping what I, the tax payer, pay open to severe competition. And I’d let parents choose where their kids went.  I’d also pay folks who chose home schooling 1/2 the going rate for per student spending.

Oh… and I’d fire all the teachers and let them rehire with the private schools the  best they could.  Thus I’d avoid a pension crisis in the future.

And I’d sit back and watch education, real education, bloom in Trenton, MI. 

Big change,sure,  but big problems call for that don’t they?