PARSS PRESENTATION
SLIDE 1
“We are the
majority.”
As a school board member and someone who has a
reputation for, among other things, paying attention,
I know that we now face the darkest days in our
lifetime for public education. Our governor, under
the guise of privatizing schools, is more accurately
described as profitizing children.
He and his ilk see children first and foremost as little
profit centers where the goal is to minimize costs –
like quality education – in order to maximize profits
– like cyber charter schools.
SLIDE 2 – cat &
mouse
But don’t take this personally. I suppose the mouse
is taking his predicament very personally, but don’t
take our circumstance personally. Our governor is
so ignorant of public education that the idiocy he’s
inflicting on us – from block granting the subsidy, to
a moratorium on school construction, to outright
lies about the purpose and effect of his words and
deeds – can’t be taken personally. It’s all
ideologically illogical. Call it ide-illogical.
SLIDE 3 –
Common wealth
to private wealth
This administration isn’t picking just on public
education. We are part of a broader plan to give our
common wealth to private wealth, ideally with the
public getting as little of value as possible in return.
If you look comprehensively at this administration’s
plans, you see the same attack on anything public –
public transportation, public safety, public libraries,
public health, public parks and lands, public welfare,
public pensions, public universities, and of course
public employees.
Rhetorical question: Which school of management
excellence taught them that the way to improve
productivity is to berate our workforce?
The most stunning aspect of this agenda, though,
isn’t its entirely destructive nature – that it offers
nothing better in place of what it seeks to destroy.
SLIDE 4 – The
majority of
Pennsylvania
Voters Support
Public Education
It is that this agenda, especially with regard to
public education, is exactly the opposite of what the
great majority of PA voters want. In the
Commonwealth and country created for the express
purpose of enabling the people to govern
themselves through majority rule and minority
consent, this administration is openly contemptuous
of what most PA voters want.
We don’t have to stand for that, and the rest of my
presentation will offer ideas for how we can, in a
very positive way, fight back.
Let me present you with the vision for public
education that most voters want. As I do, think
about how likely that vision is to exist unless we do
what our government refuses to do, and that is to
insist in every way possible the majority of PA
voters get the schools and the government they
want.
Let’s begin with funding. Last spring as the Corbett
Administration and it accomplices in the Legislature
were preparing the budget, the debate was what to
cut in order to balance it.
SLIDE 5 – PA
Voters support
school funding
Public opinion about that was very clear: 78% of PA
voters told the Franklin & Marshall Poll last March
that they did not want to cut funding for public
schools in order to balance the budget. Only 19%
supported such cuts. The governor and legislature –
which was then sitting on a slush fund of $188.5
million – represented the 19%.
One year later, the result is nearly identical. This
year’s February F&M poll found 79% of PA voters
still don’t want to cut funding for public schools;
only 19% do; and 2% are undecided.
If they have their way, the governor and legislature
will once again represent the 19%.
But that’s just money. What about the curriculum?
How strong is the back-to-basics crowd? Or better
yet – how strong is the understanding that a 19th
Century education isn’t good enough in the 21st
Century?
SLIDE 6 – The
The arts are a popular target. The cost-cutters
arts are essential. slander the arts as fluff. But most voters don’t. In a
November poll, 81% of voters said that arts – visual,
music, theatre, dance – are essential to a
comprehensive K-12 education. Only 17% disagree.
SLIDE 7 – 93%
support a broad
curriculum
And in the world of “choice,” there is even stronger
support for a wide and deep curriculum. In the same
poll, an amazing 93% of voters said that any public
school choice policies should ensure that all
students have opportunities for “advanced
placement courses, career and technical courses, arts
courses, foreign language courses and, if they have
completed high school graduation requirements
before the completion of their senior year,
academically appropriate college courses.” A measly
4% disagree.
What about whether people think they’re getting
value for their money?
SLIDE 8 – Voters
supported
increases in
2008, 2009 and
The same poll found that 64% of voters supported
the $750 million increase in funding for public
schools during 2008, 2009, and 2010. Only 28%
didn’t.
2010.
SLIDE 9 – 62%
support equity
Finally, what about the idea that the state should
narrow the gap between the haves and have-nots,
an issue that is dear to PARSS? In November, 62% of
PA voters said the state should “take steps to
increase state funding to poorer school districts as a
way to reduce … funding disparity, even if it means
less funding will be available for state increases to
wealthier districts.” Only 28% embrace the social
Darwinism that is willing to deny opportunity to
those children who need it most and who are not
responsible for their economic circumstances.
Remember: this public commitment to public
education comes after three of the worst economic
years in American history. Still, voters get it in ways
that are deep and profound.
Despite all of the bashing, all of the distortion, and
all of the outright lies about public schools,
majorities that most politicians only dream of in
their own elections continue to support us.
SLIDE 10 – Our
Bully Pulpit
Now the question is how to deploy that support.
I’ll give you an example of one way to do it. At last
week’s meeting of the Carlisle school board, we
advanced to PlanCon D with a $45 million project to
upgrade and expand our two middle schools, which
are pretty much as they were when they were built
33 years ago.
In the audience were two members of the public,
both elders, who come to every meeting to complain
about something. Most recently, they’ve been
complaining about the middle school project, saying
that this is not the time to do such things.
Coincidentally, Les Baer was there to get our
approval to refinance some 2007 bonds, saving us at
least $200,000. He made the point that interest rates
are now at 45-year lows, making this the best time
for the middle school projects.
SLIDE 11 – Use
every
opportunity
All that’s good. But at the end of the meeting when
board members have a chance to talk about
anything they want, I decided to use some public
opinion research as a way to illustrate how far from
the mainstream our two concerned citizens are.
First, I recited that 79% of PA voters don’t want to
cut state funding for public schools, as I mentioned
above.
Then I quoted the poll from last November, which
found that 82% of PA voters “want lawmakers to
maintain funding for public even in bad times and
even if it means cutting other programs and raising
taxes and fees.” Only 14% are unwilling to do these
things to support public schools, and only 4% don’t
know.
I don’t know whether our two concerned citizens
got the message or not, but I’m going to keep
sending it. At each meeting, I will find something
from public opinion research that supports public
schools, and I will make sure everyone in the room
hears it. No one else will, and people need to know
they’re not alone. All people get from the media is
the left and right. They talk about and write about
the extremes, which leaves ordinary people
wondering who cares about them.
SLIDE 12 – Free
markets
That’s one tactic. Another is to speak their language.
Last spring, as a candidate for school board, I went
to the preliminary budget adoption meeting. There
were about 100 people there with a line-up of
professional complainers with the usual demands:
don’t raise taxes; cut the fluff out of the curriculum;
stop paying teachers and administrators so much;
and cut payroll and pension costs by imposing a
wage freeze.
I introduced myself as a candidate and made four
points under the heading of Free Markets.
1. The free market has examined our financial
management and has given us a high bond
rating that reduces the cost to our taxpayers.
We also consistently get clean audits. We try
to keep a large fund balance, because that also
contributes to a good bond rating. The free
market says we’re well-managed.
2. The free market wants high school graduates
who have a broad and deep educational
experience, not a bare-bones curriculum. We
need to do what the free market requires and
not disadvantage our students when they are
applying for increasingly competitive
admission to the college of their choice.
3. The free market does not value one-year
decisions for operations that are as complex
as a school district and clients who are as
complicated as children. It values the kind of
forward vision that we try to effect despite
having as partners a governor and legislature
who act as though planning is a four-letter
word.
4. The free market determines how we
compensate our professional staff. We
compete with other school districts for talent
the way any business does. In all of our
contract negotiations, we strive to be in the
middle of the pack among the school districts
in our area, letting the free market determine
what the outer limits are.
I concluded by asking the board to raise taxes as
high as the Act 1 index would allow, which was
3.5%, because that is what success in the free
market requires.
I got elected anyway. The Tea Party folks threatened
to run a write-in campaign against me, but nothing
materialized.
Back to public opinion….
SLIDE 13 – “Why
don’t our
representatives
actually
represent us?”
Last summer, I was appalled at the debt-ceiling
crisis. You may recall that a handful of extremist
members of Congress took the United States to the
brink of default and created real chaos in foreign
markets out of their slavish commitment to
ideological purity. No more debt. Let the house of
cards collapse and damn the collateral damage.
What I found most appalling, though, was that this
debate raged while 70% of American voters
understood that to solve our financial problems
required both cuts in spending and higher taxes.
So why did we go through all this turmoil? Why
don’t our representatives actually represent us?
There are many reasons for this, but the bottom line
is that we don’t insist on it.
The media cover the left and the right, but they don’t
cover the center. Forget what a bone-headed
business model that is, which explains why
newspapers are in decline. We have to force them to
cover the middle.
Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of
something very important: The bedrock idea of
American democracy is that the people have the
right to govern themselves, and the role of
government is to help us do it, not prevent us from
doing it. It’s to represent us, not rule us.
The best part of talking about public opinion
research is that it puts our opponents on the
defensive for a change. There is no more powerful
election-year argument against vouchers, for
example, than that voters oppose them by a 2:1
margin, and have for the past 20 years.
When you align yourself with public opinion, you
get to ask lawmakers, “Why don’t you do what the
public wants you to do?”
And when someone argues with you about it, you
get to say, “Pilgrim, your argument isn’t with me. It’s
with your fellow citizens. When you convince them,
you’ll convince me.”
We are a society that is being dominated by the
margins. It’s time to restore the margins to the
margins, and the only way to do that is to become
aggressive at making sure public opinion is part of
the discussion at every opportunity.
Here are a few examples:
 Especially during budget season, look for
opportunities to get public opinion about
school funding into every board meeting,
every newspaper story, and every speech you
give to community audiences.
 You can even use negative polling to your
advantage. When polls and pols say that a
majority of people are concerned about
violence in schools, say that you’re with the
majority and ask where the state’s plan is to
solve the problem of violence so that you are
not tagged unfairly with that complaint.
 When a poll says that people want to equalize
resources for all students regardless of where
they live, publicly ask your lawmakers to
come to a board meeting and tell the public
what they’re doing to make that happen.
 If your newspaper allows online comments,
look for opportunities to post comments
about what the public wants, according to the
kind of opinion research Terry Madonna does.
SLIDE 14 –
“NO ONE WANTS
HIGHER
TAXES!!!!!!!!!”
I especially like posting comments in reply to the
ranters and haters. When they scream in all capitals,
underlined, italicized, and bolded with an apparent
seizure disorder on the exclamation point key that
“NO ONE WANTS HIGHER TAXES!!!!!!!,” I calmly
reply that, in fact, a large majority of people support
higher state taxes for public schools and a few other
things like roads and bridges. I recite the numbers
and I provide a link to the polls with an invitation
for them to read the polls for themselves.
I began using this tactic after The Philadelphia
Inquirer published an essay I wrote making the case
for higher taxes based solely on public opinion
research.
SLIDE 15 – Echo
chamber
A day or so later, I got an email from a reader:
“…where exactly was this poll taken??? Cal-State
Berkley Campus, or maybe an Occupy Philly / Wall
Street encampment?? …Was it 'truly' a fair sample of
"The Majority of PA Citizenry'! Somehow, I think
not...”
I sent him links to the actual polls and assured him
that all of the polls I cited meet national standards
for transparency, methodology, and reliability. He
thanked me for the reply and promised to read the
polls, but I never heard back from him.
This gentleman is an example of a terribly
destructive tendency of people to live in echo
chambers. They rarely hear or see anything that
doesn’t agree with their biases. As a result, they
truly believe that their views are consistent with the
majority. They are genuinely shocked to find out
that they have gone down a rabbit hole.
We do such people a service when we honor the
twin concepts of majority rule and minority consent.
We also make our own lives easier and increase the
chances of success with the students we educate.
Well, it’s all well and good for me – a confessed
policy wonk – to recite these facts and figures. But
where are they when you need them?
SLIDE 16 – web
site
They’re at www.themajoritypartypa.com.
The Majority Party PA is a new political action
committee I formed to give power to public opinion.
I’m happy to talk about that in Q&A if you want, but
for now, all you need to know is that every poll of PA
voters on ordinary public policy issues is compiled
at www.themajoritypartypa.com. There is a section
on education, and it contains both summaries of the
findings and links to the actual polls. There is no
other web site that provides all of this information
in one place.
So use it for all it’s worth. And if you subscribe – it’s
free – you will get notices when there is new opinion
research.
SLIDE 17 – cat &
mouse
We have tremendous support among the public.
They know that when they look around at all they
value, 90% of the people who created it were
educated in public schools.
If we can reinforce those attitudes and show that we
value the opinion of our fellow citizens, we may just
change our assumptions about who’s the cat and
who’s the mouse.
SLIDE 18 – We
are the majority
party.
Q&A