Page 12 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • February 22, 2012 gress or the White House, and many of them hope to stay in Northwest Bergen County as long as they are perpendicular. They may indeed recognize that quality schools attract quality residents. The town where I grew up scrimped on schools. Some of my high school buddies served in combat in Vietnam, and they said it was no big deal after high school. We’re talking homicides here, folks, not cyber-bullying. Really bad schools and the people they attract are no bargain at any price. The incentive proposed to keep the school budgets at or below the cap and expose those budgets that went over the cap was only the beginning of what has to be done, but it was a big step in the right direction. I see nothing in the Declaration of Independence that gives people the right to foist the special-interest costs of education off on their neighbors. I see much that would suggest this is not a good idea. It’s time to grasp a new paradigm: The answer to the present economic catastrophe is not taxing the public to give every kid two college degrees and no job at the end of the tunnel. The Occupy Wall Street crowd did not occupy Wall Street because they were concerned with abstract issues like integrity. Those folks were there, for the most part, because the educations they and their families paid for with the help of the taxpayers were not turning into job offers. In the cold new dawn we each face every morning, most manufacturing jobs have gone to China, a lot of agricultural jobs have gone to Mexico, and a lot of people have come here, not always legally, to compete for the jobs that do not require calculus or a master’s degree. The short-term answer seems to be for reasonably intelligent but non-argumentative people to become teachers so they can make a sold middle-class living with some pretty big money at the end of the cycle. One of my spies tells me that when a teaching position recently cropped up in Northwest Bergen County, the school office received 700 applications. That shows a commendable enthusiasm for education. The idea that anybody who finishes college can teach between coaching sports is reflected in some of the information circulating among high school kids and recent graduates. Robert Costello, an excellent Abraham Lincoln interpreter, told me a few weeks ago that he sometimes talks to high school kids who are amazed to hear that slavery had anything to do with the Civil War. Kids believe that Joseph McCarthy only imagined that there were communists in the federal administration and Hollywood, and that he made the whole thing up out of his own drunken paranoia. The kids have been denied the shocking disclosure, available for the past dozen years or more, that most of the people McCarthy specifically accused were guilty. Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and a number of other people were passing information to the Soviets or influencing American policy to favor Stalin, who killed three times as many people as Hitler and 10 times as many as Hirohito. These are facts. Not knowing them will not make them go away. However, if the kids rely on the schools, they probably will not know the facts. The kids will not learn that American military policy during and just after World War II was to revitalize both Germany and Japan as quickly as possible to continue the containment of the Soviet Union. Containment had been official policy before Franklin Delano Roosevelt let the closet communists take over our foreign policy. Nor will the kids learn that only productive labor generates actual income and that jobs invented to keep people busy will only contribute to the destruction of the professional and investing classes through an inability to save money, retire, and leave the jobs to people with multiple college degrees. The goal of Americans and the goal of the teachers and their advocates can be summed up in two words: economic survival. However, voting the status quo and continuing to let school spending dominate the local tax picture will not ensure the survival of the American economy. The situation is either serious – as in right now – or it really is hopeless. About 100 years ago, a charming little joke was heard in the coffeehouses of Europe: “What is the difference between Berlin and Vienna? In Berlin, the situation is always serious, but never hopeless. In Vienna, the situation is always hopeless, but never serious.” When things went downhill, Vienna dragged Berlin into a war with Russia that shortly became a war with France, Belgium, Britain, Japan, Italy and the United States. The situation was both serious and hopeless. The situation with the cost of education in Northwest Bergen County is not hopeless. The quality of the education is quite good – but the cost of the education is more than serious. The situation is hopelessly serious. Few council meetings go by when somebody fails to get up and complain about the cost of a new fire engine or the salary of a senior executive, but the situation cannot be rectified simply by privatizing the positions of the custodians and foodservice workers. The situation can only be rectified when somebody shifts the wages of the teachers and the administrators into reverse gear and asks the school boards why people with a single college degree get paid twice as much as private sector people with multiple college degrees who work longer hours and commute to places they might rather not visit except for excursions to Broadway or the museums. As an aside, the boss will sometimes tell an employee that the employee is overpaid, but this is generally a pretext to impending unemployment. I remember, many years ago, when a self-styled entrepreneur bought a going concern from the old boss and decided he could run it at a better profit if he got rid of everybody who was paid anything close to a living wage. The first victim of the downsizing was my buddy Dave, a young man who had three other jobs and had long since learned what to expect. A year later, the pink slip-happy boss had run a solid publication into the ground because the part-timers he hired couldn’t cut it. That’s life in the private sector. If you can’t cut it, or sometimes even if you can cut it very well, you hit the bricks when things don’t look so good. If you want a gold watch and a pension, you had better save the money and pay for your own, and it’s easier to save when you aren’t taxed into the poorhouse. The school election shift was double-edged. Since the school budget would not be on the ballot if it stayed under the state-mandated cap, now set at two percent, the school boards had an incentive to bring the budget in under the cap. If the school boards failed to bring the budget in under the cap, the over-the-cap budget would face a constituency of people who were not single-issue voters. People who vote in April are generally focused on whatever they think is good for the kids. Many of those voters will cheerfully approve exorbitant school spending because they expect to be moving out of town as soon as the last kid graduates from the local high school and heads for Harvard. The people who vote in the general election in November generally turn out to send candidates to Con- The school election shift: Necessary, but not an evil Ridgewood The Ridgewood Department of Recreation is offering a variety of afterschool classes for children. Registration may be completed in person or by mail at the Stable, 259 North Maple Avenue, in Ridgewood, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. or online at www.ridgewoodnj.net/communitypass. Visit www.ridgewoodnj.net for details, or call (201) 670-5560. Classes will be held at The Stable. Explore Science: Who Dunnit? will be offered to children in kindergarten through grade three on Mondays from 3:45 to 4:45 p.m. beginning March 12. Students will investigate mysteries with forensic science hands-on experiments and activities. The fee is $95 for six classes and includes all materials. Children in grades two through five may take the acrylic painting class, which will meet on Tuesdays from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. beginning March 6. Participants will receive individual attention and will be provided with goals and objectives to help them find their own personal approach to painting. Cost for the six classes is $54; materials are additional and a list will be provided at registration. A calligraphy class will be offered to students in grades three and up on Tuesdays from 3:45 to 4:45 p.m. beginning March 13. Students will learn the art of beautiful handwriting and create invitations, greeting cards, and more. The fee is $70 for six classes. Materials are additional for new participants and may be obtained for an additional $20 at the first class. Drawing will be offered to children in grades two through five on Wednesdays from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. beginning March 7. Students will work at their own level using drawing pencils and pastels. The six classes cost $54; materials are additional and a list will be provided at registration. Village offers afterschool classes Abrakadoodle’s Canvas Painting is for children in kindergarten and first grade. This program will meet on Thursdays from 3:45 to 4:45 p.m. beginning March 15. Young artists will paint on a variety of canvas surfaces. Each week, participants will explore a different artist and his or her style. The cost for six sessions is $110 and includes all materials. Nature in the Village with New Jersey Audubon will be offered to children in kindergarten through grade two on Thursdays from 3:45 to 4:45 p.m. beginning March 8. Students will enjoy seasonal nature discussions, hands-on crafts, and nature walks to explore the environs. New topics will be provided weekly. The fee is $95 for six classes and includes all materials. The Aviation Club with Hobby Quest will be offered to students in kindergarten through grade five on Fridays from 3:45 to 4:45 p.m. beginning March 9. Participants will gain knowledge of the fascinating world of aviation, learn how to read and evaluate construction plans, and utilize hobby tools as they create and operate a variety of air models. The fee is $120 for six sessions and includes all materials. Village resident and artist Virginia Borghese will present charcoal drawing/pastel painting to middle school students from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. on Mondays from March 12 through April 23. Students will receive personalized instruction in drawing basics and pastel use. The cost for this six-week program is $60. A list of additional materials will be provided at registration. Two yoga classes are available. Children in grades two through five will meet on Wednesdays beginning March 7. A class for middle school students will meet on Tuesdays beginning March 5. The fee is $75 for six sessions. Participants should bring a mat and wear comfortable clothing.