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Pat Garofalo

At the height of a bitter budget debate in 1963, Republicans in the California State Assembly refused to vote on a budget bill without knowing the details of how it would fund California’s schools. The Assembly speaker, Democrat Jesse Unruh, responded by locking them all inside the assembly chamber until they agreed to vote. The standoff didn’t last long and it certainly didn’t represent the pinnacle of statesmanship.

While I don’t think Minnesota’s debate over education reform will ever boil over to the point of legislative hostage taking, I do think there will be some very passionate discussions about the merits of the ideas the Legislature will consider, the most publicized of which came a week ago from House and Senate Democrats.

In my estimation, their plan does little more than dust off a nickname from the 1970s to perpetuate an outdated view of education. In addition, they have no clue how they are going to pay for it. After all, a plan without a funding source isn’t really a plan. It’s just a gimmick.

As parents and taxpayers, we don’t want gimmicks. We only ask for two things from the education system: results for our children and accountability for our tax dollars. Reform efforts, which we all agree are needed, ought to be judged by how well they meet these two basic standards of expectation. The Democrats plan delivers on neither.

Accountability requires simplicity. Does any parent know what it means to “define the adjusted net tax capacity equalizing factor as the statewide average adjusted net tax capacity per pupil unit” as the Democrats’ plan would do, or how that directly equates to a better education for their child? Or, excuse me, for their pupil unit?

The Democrats’ plan does nothing to simplify this incomprehensible system. True reform must focus on spending our money in ways that relate to clear outcomes. That way we can easily see what works and what doesn’t and use our tax dollars accordingly.

We must also embrace the limitless opportunities of today’s technologies to improve the quality of learning programs. The modern classroom has more computer technology than the machines that sent men to the moon, let’s use it!

You cannot give today’s generation a rotary phone and expect them to compete in a globalized mobile world, but that’s essentially what the Democrats’ plan would do. Their emphasis on a complex, broken system is ill-suited for the 21st century.

When was the last time you saw a DVD player with its clock blinking 12:00? You haven’t, because today’s kids are the ones who set them up! They can handle the technology if we have the political will to integrate it into their everyday education.

It all comes down to the simple question: Are our children learning?

Under the Republican plan for accountability and results, every parent would be able to answer that question for their own child. Under the Democrat plan, a team of bureaucrats would have to explain how each pupil unit learns in correlation with their qualifications for basic and categorical aids.

Which makes more sense to you?

Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, is a member of the Minnesota House and serves on the House K-12 Finance Divison.

http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=15332&section=Opinion