Akron school levy

The connecting fiber of our community is being stretched with the discussion and vote on the Akron Public Schools operation levy. On one hand the necessity for the levy for the district's operating budget is essential. (To remind folks: the levy has nothing to do with the building program that is now going on. That money comes mainly from the state building fund and from the city income tax. Nothing of it can be used for operations. The paradox is if the levy doesn't pass, we will have new buildings with very reduced use of their functionality.)

One the other hand, there are clearly folks who are stretched hard by having their property tax raised for the levy. The case can be made on how essential the levy is, but that doesn't change the financial dilemmas that some folks are facing. Their budget needs are stretched too thin with the addition of the increased levy on their property taxes. For those of you in this predicament, I find myself struggling between my children's educational needs and the truth that I know you face if the levy passes.

The majority in the Ohio state legislature has made us hostage to this situation for a so called "fiscal responsiblity agenda". It has forced us as local Ohio communities to be in internal conflict at a time this state needs it communities to be able to put their best foot forward in the face of a declining popultion. The unwillingness of the legislature to follow the ruling of the Ohio Supreme Court has left constituencies of great need to be in conflict with one another.

This state has no coordinated educational policy. Rather, we have an uneasy "compromise" of various constituencies who have squeezed out as much as they can for their own particular program to "save" children's education. And then on top of that, we have the federal "No Child Left Behind" program as the 1000 lb gorilla in the middle of the whole thing. So now we have dwindling dollars being fought over by a variety of competing "educational" experts and reformers e.g. standardized performance testing for graduation and charter schools. The bottom line is that the students of the public schools of this state are left in a very precarious situation. And teachers have little room to function in the arena in which they are expected to perform the best...the classroom.

The specific reality in urban districts like Akron's is that as the money dries up in the district, those who can afford it move to outlying districts so their children will have the opportunities they believe they deserve (even though those same outlying districts are also starting to experience the financial squeeze). The children who remain in those urban districts whose families are unable to move, mainly for economic reasons, deserve to have the same educational opportunities. This is another reality of the economic injustice that continue to fester in public education. It brings us back to the folks who own their own homes, but are are facing economic limitations in voting for the levy. Vulnerable folks are being thrown into competition with other vulernable folks. The fiber of the community is being stretched more and more toward the breaking point. When we're up to our rear in educational plans for our children, who is going to drain the swamp? With that question the chorus of competing educational saviors begins their litany of answers. We still are not working together in developing a unified educational policy for all our children, but work to appease the "saviors" by giving each a portion of the pie. The children keep losing.

Ok, so this is a round about way to ask folks to vote for the APS levy. But I couldn't just simply do that. This levy is not in isolation. It has a host of factors that are driving it and are confronting it. And in the end, whether it passes or fails, with the present circumstances, we will have a portion of this community mad as hell. Who could have ever imagined that we would come to a time in the U.S when trying to provide quality education for our children would lead to dissecting the unity of the community?