EDUCATION: PAY FOR WHAT YOU USE

Should individuals be forced to pay for something, to pay for anything, that they have no use for? Would you expect to receive a bill from say, the gas company, if you did not use natural gas in your home? Would you pay an invoice from an appliance store where you had never made a purchase in your life? Why would you pay a milkman who never delivered any milk? Would it help to be told that you are being charged for all these things because you must be forced to contribute “your fair share” for the benefit of everyone that does use those goods and services? Your fair share? What is fair about forcing people to pay for things they do not need and will never use?

There is nothing fair about forcing people to pay for things they do not use, of course. Hence is the problem with every universal social program that has ever been concocted by human beings, to which education is no exception. Any social program that is applied to all taxpayers, by design, forces some people to pay for some things they will not use. It does not take a genius to figure out, that is just plain wrong.

How do I know it doesn’t take a genius to come such a simple realization? Well, because some Canadian politicians have apparently come to realize that it is wrong to charge people for things they do not use, particularly public education. And, I am of the opinion that if politicians of any stripe can figure it out, surely anyone can. The good news is, if you are a senior citizen living in Ontario you get a reimbursement on your property taxes for the schools you are not using. I hope someone in the States is paying attention.

It all started in May of 2003 when Janet Ecker, Ontario’s Minister of Finance, introduced the “Ontario Home Property Tax Relief for Seniors Act.” It proposed a new program that provided senior homeowners and renters a refund for a portion of the property tax on their principal residences. The refund is expressly for the “education portion” of their tax bills. In other words, Ontario does not make its senior citizens pay for schools they are not using. It looks like Ontario’s government is at least trying to be fair with some of its taxpayers and I certainly applaud the effort.

Under Minister Ecker’s “Ontario Home Property Tax Relief for Seniors Act” it is estimated that seniors will see savings on their taxes of 450 million dollars annually. That works out to about $475 in annual savings for each of Ontario’s 945,000 senior households. It may not seem like very much, but I bet it means a lot to those almost one million taxpayers getting the tax break they desperately need and rightfully deserve.

Now, I can hear the critics screaming already about the government’s loss of 450 million dollars in revenue for education, and how it must surely adversely affect the quality of education the children are receiving. Well, it is not really such a big deal according to Ontario’s own Ministry of Finance website which had this to say about property-tax relief:

“Providing property tax relief for seniors in no way diminishes the government’s commitment to public education, which is based on a student-focussed (sic) funding model. With the enhancements announced in the 2003 Budget, education funding for the upcoming 2003-04 school year, including direct provincial transfers and education property taxes, stands at a record $15.3 billion — the highest level of education funding in Ontario’s history, which represents a $2.4 billion increase since 1995.”

So you see, the government, nor the children, are really hurting at all from doing the right thing for taxpayers that already carry way too much of the burden created by the beast Bureaucracy.

Now, how about taking this exercise in fairness one-step further. As I said, I applaud Ontario’s government in realizing an unjust taxation when they see it; and, for moving in the right direction to address a flaw in the system. But, if government is showing this kind of understanding toward the elderly, how much harder would it be to recognize all the other unfortunate victims of an unfair tax? If Ontario’s government is to be criticized at all in its efforts to reform taxes for education, it is only that they haven’t gone far enough. Many individuals are unjustly taxed every year to help pay for public school systems they do not need or use, and they need to be recognized right along with the elderly.

Who are these forgotten individuals who are forced to pay for government schools they are not using, you ask? First and foremost are the single taxpayers that do not have dependent children. Some, of course, will meet other singles, marry and have children, but many of them will never have children and never need a public school system. It is simply unfair, as it is with the senior citizens, to force these individuals to pay for a service they never use. One cannot claim someone else has a fair share of anything in which they do not share.

Even individuals that do have children must be considered on an individual basis in order to continue our exercise in fairness. How about the parents that choose not to send their precious offspring to government-controlled schools, but instead choose to send them to private institutions? And what about the parents that have decided to educate their own children at home? We can’t forget any parent that has chosen alternatives to public schools because they just don’t use the system. Why should any of these people be forced to pay for services that are not being provided for them? Don’t they deserve a tax break too? Well, of course they do!

The answer is really quite simple. Individuals should not be forced to pay for anything they are not using, so only make people pay for what they use. If parents chose to take advantage of state-run schools, then they certainly should be expected to pay the government for the service. But, if individuals are not using a public education system, they should not be forced to pay for one.

Simple! Pay for what you use. Why should education be different from any other commodity on the free market? Only those that actually use a product should be expected to pay for it, even if the product happens to be education.

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Audit: 40 felons work in UW System, four on academic staff

And you can bet that they would all still be sitting pretty except for media attention

The University of Wisconsin System, under fire for its employment practices, employed 40 felons as of this fall, four of them on the academic staff, according to an audit released Tuesday. The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau reviewed the system's employment rolls after concerns were raised last year following media reports on three professors who kept their jobs despite felony convictions. One of the professors was fired earlier this year.

The audit noted state statutes prohibit job discrimination based on an employee's arrest or conviction record unless the conviction is substantially related to the person's job. The UW System took steps earlier this month to expedite the termination of faculty who are convicted of serious criminal misconduct.

The audit found: 27 of the 40 felons work at UW-Madison. Two of the workers were convicted of homicide during the 1970s and have been on parole since the early 1990s. Four employees were convicted of a total of five sexual assaults of a child. There were 54 felonies committed by the 40 employees. Nine of them were considered violent. The nonviolent offenses included fraud and forgery, operating a vehicle while intoxicated, theft, and drug possession. The report on felons is part of a larger review the Audit Bureau is conducting of UW System employment practices.

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Some offbeat "Education" quotes

"In the first place God made idiots; that was for practice; then he made school boards." (Mark Twain)

"Dublin University contains the dream of Ireland - rich and thick." (Samuel Beckett)

"Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education." (Mark Twain)

"Don't let schooling interfere with your education." (Mark Twain)

"I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like 'What I'm going to be if I grow up.'" (Lenny Bruce)

"In our school you were searched for guns and knifes on the way in and if you didn't have any, they gave you some." (Emo Philips)

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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