Page 26 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • April 28, 2010 through taxation. The Ridgewood Education Foundation and the various Home and School Associations and the Wyckoff Education Foundation and the various Parent Teacher Associations give the schools six-figure donations every year to sustain or introduce all sorts of programs that expand learning and make school more enjoyable for the kids. Most towns have similar volunteers, but Ridgewood’s and Wyckoff’s are the two most outstanding I know of. Neither group convinced the majority of the voters, despite the narrow defeats in both towns, to join them in supporting the best possible education. Elections come and go, but the problem remains. The schools are vitally important to citizens who have schoolaged children, less important to childless people and those who send their children to private schools, and an absolute threat to most people on fixed incomes. Northwest Bergen County is so hospitable to civilized people of some breeding and intelligence, and so willing to help people acquire that breeding and expand that intelligence, that a lot of people simply do not want to leave. The churches, the libraries, and even the shopping are an important source of enjoyment and sometimes of consolation. It’s indecent to force decent people out of town because they thought a paid-up house and the interest on a half-million would see them through once they opted for Social Security. High taxes and low interest rates, not to mention the collapse of the stock market and some pension funds, has turned that gentle dream into a nightmare. For older people who are not seriously rich, school taxes and other property taxes turned Northwest Bergen County into a disaster area long before the snowstorm, the windstorm, and the “boil-water” order. How do you build a school budget that everyone can take seriously and perhaps even support? If people are primarily motivated by self-interest – let’s call it greed – on both sides of the equation, you can’t do it. The existing problem includes the people who move into a town when the kids start middle school and leave when the last kid gets into college. These are usually not the people who donate large amounts of money or time to the schools, although there are exceptions. Some of the older people have grown grouchy through endless fiscal abuse, and may wish fewer kids were around. I don’t mind the kids. I tutor a lot of them, and they are surprisingly nice people when they aren’t trying to impress their peers. The common ground has to be saving the kids without regarding the school system as an entitlement job program. Most of the kids find school tolerable because of friends and sports or other activities, but that is not why their parents send them there. School is about education – not sports, sex, drinking, or drugs. Ask any honest kid or police officer if you think I’m kidding. The key to saving the schools could be to upgrade the economic program so the kids who are not academic competitors in honors and Advanced Placement classes could learn a full roster of business skills or an entry-level trade skill and be employable the moment they graduate. The other piece of that puzzle would be to insist that a realistic minimum wage could make it possible for people to become self-supporters without two college degrees. We also need to realize that special education kids need our help and support, but pretending that any amount of academic education can compensate for serious disabilities is a very expensive fantasy. It may be too expensive for the present economic situation. Educational decisions must be made on the basis of what is practicable, not on the basis of what group of parents screams the loudest. Last suggestion: Get rid of tenure. A few years ago, we had a teacher who knew advanced math well but could not speak English well enough to answer the students’ questions. Incredibly, she served three years and messed up some previously straight-A transcripts before the board of education told her she was not coming back for the fourth – tenure-conferring – year. She cried, and the teachers picketed the school to demand she be reinstated even though she could not teach. Some students showed up to defend her. Some parents showed up. One of those parents, who has an advanced degree in the subject she taught, confirmed that she was not qualified to teach in an American public school because she could not speak enough English. This should have been an absolute no-brainer. It was not a racial thing. Some of the objectors came from the same quadrant of the planet as the teacher did. Teachers are supposed to teach. They are not supposed to band together to defend a peer who ruins students’ lives. Most people do not like paying too much money for teachers. What they really do not like is paying too much money for teachers who cannot teach. The dust has settled and this corner of Bergen County is split down the middle. In the towns I cover, half the people are smiling. In some places, people are smiling because the school budgets went down to a narrow but conclusive defeat. In other towns, people are smiling because the budgets were approved. Nowhere is everybody happy. Here are some of the ironies. Impartial observers generally find that Ridgewood has the best, or one of the best, high schools in this area, and the district has some of the best elementary schools. Other districts around the state and the nation buy Ridgewood educational programs canned for external use, yet Ridgewood’s budget was defeated at the polls by just over 100 votes -- even after the board and administration made responsible cuts. Glen Rock’s budget was approved by a substantial margin after the superintendent sent a detailed letter to the governor asking that Glen Rock not be punished because of abuses elsewhere in the state. Glen Rock has a good school system, though the district needs to remember that great sports coaches do not always great history teachers. One history teacher who is now retired from the Allendale K-8 school district once saw how impressed I was with her knowledge and fascination with her subject. “You’re probably wondering why I don’t teach in high school,” she said. “You’re right,” I replied. “I don’t coach sports,” she explained. Multiply that phenomenon exponentially and you have the answer to a few other questions: Why do schools host guest seminars in “Participatory American Democracy”? The United States is not a democracy, as ancient Athens was, but rather a republic, as ancient Rome was. An intelligent and qualified attorney who had volunteered to speak at one of these seminars caught that one on the rebound when he saw me in the audience at a council meeting. I hope he explains the difference to the kids and the coaches who teach them. Why do kids graduate from middle-class high schools with upper-class tax rates and still not know the difference between there and their, or then and than? Why did we invade Iraq when the Sept. 11 terrorists mostly came from Saudi Arabia? Wyckoff’s budget also took the chop by a narrow margin. Wyckoff K-8 schools are generally very good, though the administrative structure has had issues. No one has completely forgotten the fact that a former business administrator embezzled about $1.7 million from the district less than a decade ago, and that money was never recovered. I suspect that voters also remember the scene last year in which members of the Wyckoff Education Association voted “no confidence” in the superintendent at a public meeting because of what were largely cost-cutting decisions. The irony is that Ridgewood and Wyckoff, where the budgets both went down in defeat, have many residents who support education out of their own personal or corporate pockets and not out of their neighbors’ pockets Some school budget questions and ironies Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: On March 13, during a severe storm with high winds, our home was hit by a falling tree. The noise was unbelievable, and wind and rain rushed into our living room. It was something a homeowner never wants to see. Luckily, our family was not injured. Sirens were going off all through town and we knew emergency services were inundated with calls. To see, the trucks, fire engines and other emergency vehicles coming to our aid was a blessing. The response time was quick -- a matter of minutes before the damage and safety of our family was assessed. This is a storm few will forget. The following day, a cold and rainy one, we returned to our property to find Wyckoff Tree Service working long hours to remove the 80-foot tree. The mayor and wonderful staff from borough hall came over to talk with us and see the damage firsthand. The Wyckoff police also stopped by. We appreciate all these caring people! We were told by our neighbors that during the night the Oakland Fire Department came back to put a tarp over our roof to lessen the damage to our home. We are thankful to Oakland for that! Words cannot express our heartfelt gratitude to Wyckoff, Franklin Lakes, Oakland police and fire departments and our caring neighbors and friends for all they have done for us. Jim, Joanne, and Amanda Valenti Wyckoff Dear Editor: It appears that the Franklin Lakes council members intend to pass a 10 percent tax hike onto the residents of Franklin Lakes. It is obvious that the council does not understand the mood of their residents and certainly is not paying attention to the tea party movement. They say that all government is local so let us begin at the beginning and change the way our elected borough officials attend to business. Appreciative residents Ready to (tea) party As the CEO of Pfister Roofing and Pfister Energy, I knew that the economic downturn would force us to tighten our belts so we could remain in business and keep our employees employed. We are still working on finding more areas where this can be accomplished. I believe that many business owners who live in Franklin Lakes have also had to take drastic measures within their own organizations. The days of each town, village, or borough having its own department of public works, superintendents of schools, tax collectors, police departments, etc. with the residents continuing to pay local, state, and federal taxes to support all that each government entity entails are at an end. Consolidation of municipalities is no longer a consideration. It is a must. One example of what I’m talking about is that our police department has a budget of $3 million for a town that measures 10 square miles, with two police cars on the road 24/7. I am not picking on the police here. They are a very vital and oftentimes, an underappreciated group of civil servants. (I’m fortunate to have a police captain in our family.) But I believe that consolidation with other communities would be beneficial to them as well. I did not agree with many of Governor Corzine’s policies, but I thoroughly agree in his belief that consolidation of municipalities must be on the table if we are to survive on the local level. That certainly would also help to keep the state solvent. Governor Corzine also requested that a study be done of several town budgets to determine where there was a waste of taxpayer dollars and possibly even fraud. While Franklin Lakes was not included in this study, it is clear that some of the very same wasteful spending occurred as outlined in the finished report entitled “The Beat Goes On: Waste and Abuse in Local Government Employee Compensation and Benefits.” I urge everyone to go to www.state.nj.us./sci and download the finished product. Pay particular attention to page 47, which outlines the corrective actions that should be implemented. (continued on page 10)