Boot Straps

Newly elected governor Katie Hobbs, in her inauguration speech, vowed to repeal the universal vouchers, officially known as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) – double-speak for if you’re wealthy, we will continue to support your wealth and the future of your children’s wealth, while doing our best to insure those who struggle financially will continue to do so.

Bridget Dowd, reporting for KJZZ, said “According to the governor’s staff, if not repealed, the 2022 expansion of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program will cost $1 5 billion over the next ten years. They say about 75% of the families newly enrolled under expanded vouchers would have attended a private or homeschool anyway A significant portion of the remaining 25%, students who have attended public schools in the past, are from wealthy areas that don’t receive state aid because of high property tax revenues.”

Our Republican majority vows that Hobbs will never succeed in repealing this law Continued from the KJZZ report,“Republican Sen. T.J. Shope called the proposal “hysterical.”“What about the 30% that weren’t [already attending private schools]? We’re gonna take it away from them? I don’t think that’s going to be a winning argument there,” Shope said.“I don’t believe that those folks will just go ahead and drift quietly into the night.” I admit, I’m feeling a bit hysterical. As I canvassed with Save Our Schools this fall, I know most Arizonans don’t support ESAs. But the people who are getting kickbacks from public school taxes? They support whatever money they can keep from the kids who cannot afford to go to private schools.

School choice is big in Arizona Arizona thinks it’s primarily a Libertarian state – you do you, and I’ll do me and never the twain shall meet. It’s impossible, though, to be a Libertarian unless you’ve arrived at such a station in life that you cannot perceive your dependence on others. You look out from your office window into an expanse of roads, trees, water treatment plants, disease-free children, playgrounds, parks and think, “How nice. I built this all for myself.” When you flush the toilet, you remember how great it will be to head out to the leech field to separate solid from liquid. Thank goodness you took that class in treating sewage! You did go to private schools which, thanks to the government refunding your taxes, you only had to pay a third of what you’d paid last year. You know if it wasn’t for the government that you wouldn’t have to pay taxes at all, and why should you? You pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps Who gave you those bootstraps? Who gave you those boots? You must have sewn them in utero from the lining of your mother’s womb. What’s a placenta for if not to give the child a leg up in their economic future?

You weren’t born in the sterile, suffocating atmosphere of the hospital. You were born in the living room of your own property; a property that the government did not murder indigenous people for; a property that they allowed you to claim it as your own You were born there, and thus, it’s your birthright, just like the bootstraps.

AsanAmericanchild,youarebornintoa worldofindividualchoice.Yourrightsmatter. Ifsomeonecomesuptoyouandasks,“What aboutmyrights?”squintattheminconfusion. “Noonesaidanythingaboutyourrights.”

“Right, but if you have rights, I have rights, too”

“Yes, you can go to private school, too.”

“I don’t have $14,000 for tuition.”

“That’s why they still have public schools”

“Yes. That’s where I go. To a public school. Although without the extra $14,000 for private school tuition, I don’t really have that choice”

“You can go to a charter school.”

“I suppose I could, but I’d have to walk. I live three miles away. There are no buses. My mom works the morning shift at the hospital.”

“You could take the public bus.”

“I am only seven years old.”

“That’s why you were born with bootstraps. Pull them up. Get yourself together.”

“What the hell are bootstraps?” (The image accompanying this conversation is taken from the Internet when one Googles, “boot straps.”)

“I’m not sure, but you should definitely get some.”

There are no bad schools,there are just poorly funded schools,or,rather,a terrible system of school funding that is bad for the entire community – and by community,I mean the entire country.By providing more funding to school districts where property taxes are higher,you are enriching the rich What if states divided student funding equally per student – or better yet,what if the federal government funded each student equally. New York state spends $20,000 per student where different districts provide different funding – Scarsdale Union Free School District,where the medium income is $250,000 spends $29,678 per student but then Rondout Valley Central School District spend $30,899 per student and the median income of families there was only $69,991.So,it’s not 100% inequitable funding in New York,but Rondout seems to be the exception,not the rule.

The state of Arizona provides $3,680 per student with district schools getting some additional funding through things like local bonds and override elections or federal desegregation funds. Districts and charters get additional funds from other federal programs, local property taxes and tax credit donations. In what way are the students of Arizona able to compete with students of New York? Scrappily, is what it sounds like. “They aren’t” is what it looks like

If all students attended similar schools all kids would get a similar education, and I don’t mean that all kids would be treated equally. Teachers have developed brilliant ways to individuate their lessons for every kind of kid, but if every kind of kid went to schools where every kind of kid was supported, something like equity might begin to emerge from our schools.

I’ve noticed that environmental scientists have begun using the word “community” to describe ecosystems as much as community organizers use the word ‘ecosystem’ to describe the necessary components for healthy neighborhoods, cities, counties and states. A pairing of ecosystem with community might make the picture clearer. Every kid needs to be there for every other kids to share what they know, who they are, what people can be like, but if the wealthiest kids go to school with other wealthy kids, they learn how to be wealthy and how to maintain that wealth If the wealthy kids share resources, like one tree on the far end of the forest sharing its resources with another, the ecosystem is stronger – the web of interrelationships becomes strong enough to withstand fire, drought, even pests.

Individualism leads us to believe our kids are ours, but they are not ours – they are the collective hope for our species’ better future. We should probably treat them, each of them, like the salvation that they are.