NATHAN BOOTZ: MAKE MY SCHOOL A PRISON, AND WE'LL GET MORE FUNDING

NATHAN BOOTZ: MAKE MY SCHOOL A PRISON, AND WE'LL GET MORE FUNDING

From the Morning Sun, 5.12.11

In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren’t we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to “fix” what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.

Adequate funding for education is a must right now. As we attempt to position Michigan as an emerging economy instead of the dying industrial economy, we have been working on “building a better student” to take us there. The introduction of the Michigan Merit Curriculum was one of those steps, but now the funding to keep us moving in that direction has dried up. We have all heard of the term “shared sacrifice,” but there is one area of the budget that should not be sacrificed at all, and that’s education.

One solution I believe we must do is to take a hard look at our corrections system in Michigan. We rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union.

Now, I like to be at the top of lists, but this is one ranking that I don’t believe Michigan wants to be on top of.

Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day, access to free health care, Internet, cable television, access to a library, access to weight rooms, and access to computer labs. While in prison they can earn a degree. Convicts get a roof over their heads and clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.

We treat our prisoners better than we treat our school children. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so they can be big and strong.

We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of our youth, who represent our future? You’d think we’d to more to secure the future of our own students. Instead, we keep hammering the educational institutions to do their jobs better with less money. It would be nice if our prisoners could start living a little leaner and with fewer resources.

Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It’s the least we can do to prepare our students for the future ... by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison.

Nathan Bootz, Ed.S.,is the superintendent of Ithaca Public Schools.

http://gomasa.org/news/nathan-bootz-make-my-school-prison-and-well-get-more-funding