Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2008 > January > 07
Monday, January 7, 2008
Quick, costly solutions not Perdue’s style
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue may be one of those leaders like Harry Truman or — horror of horrors — George W. Bush, leaders whose legacy will grow.
Much to the dismay of those who prefer the grand gesture — and I am often among them — his unwillingness to step to the microphone and announce sweeping high-dollar solutions can be seen as evidence that he’s content to run out his term while conserving his political capital.
An example is public education.
Perdue has a task force examining public education and the way we finance it. He’s drawing sharp criticism from those who are said to be “incredulous” that after three years it has not decided how to revise an “outdated” school finance formula.
In public education critics are a dime a dozen — or cheaper. No money’s ever enough. No failure to produce results is anybody’s fault. Time and again the unwillingness of the state to give more of somebody else’s money is cast by some local systems as the reason they turn out poorly educated children.
Truth is, however, money buys promises, higher salaries and yesterday’s outcomes.
Fundamentally, the system has to change. Nobody has the solution. The worst of all possible solutions, though, would be for a judge or judges sitting in Atlanta to arrogate unto themselves the knowledge to divine precisely how much one group of taxpayers should give to another — a risk with a lawsuit filed in Atlanta by some failed local systems using public money to force the state to give them more.
Critics? You can find them anywhere in that vast establishment of alphabet-soup organizations that stalk the halls of the state Capitol promising results for money.
At some point, decision-makers in the executive and legislative branch have to quit riding that pony.
The state is in transition.
The task force headed by former state legislator Dean Alford has been charged with gathering facts. Part of its charge, certainly, goes to the school finance question — but not by way of updating yesterday’s formula.
Alford’s group is expected to determine what Georgians should expect to pay per child. That is, however, just the beginning. Some systems expend more, some less. Holding them accountable is vital. That’s the premise of the “performance contracts” local systems will be encouraged to sign. Better results, more freedom.
Fixing the per-child cost, while essential, is not something that has to be done by an artificial deadline. Neither is it imperative that Georgia determine how best to fund schools just because a funding lawsuit pends. The state, regardless of the formula, is never more than a few years away from a lawsuit based on claims that some local system is failing because of too little money. That’s not a gun at the governor’s head or the Legislature’s.
Georgia’s approach, which does take time to develop, is to make certain that children across the state are being taught and tested from a standard curriculum and that a B in one system has the value of a B in another.
Pricing out those components should provide a per-child cost valid across Georgia. Financing and the consequences for local system failures are decisions that need to be made within a reasonable period of time.
Perdue’s style is to ask questions, gather information and make fact-based decisions. Water policy is an example. While the knee-jerk reaction would be to force everybody to put a brick in the toilet tank and send an armed posse of compliance police out to inspect tanks or to use the drought as a club to effect some social policy, he’s determined to find a long-range solution. How much are we using statewide and how best to manage it?
No facts are needed if the intent is simply to show concern. The children’s health care proposal before Congress is a perfect example. We don’t know why it doesn’t work, how it changes adult behaviors undesirably, or whether it’s even a good approach — and yet Congress is poised to make it an entitlement and to throw bundles of new money at it.
Gathering facts takes a while and invites the panicky mob to hysteria, but it makes for better public policy.
Permalink | Comments (48) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
We’re for change — or whatever.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New polls in New Hampshire point to a tight race between John McCain and Mitt Romney among Republicans and a real struggle for Hillary Clinton. A USA Today/Gallup poll released Sunday shows Barack Obama with a 13-point lead, 41-28, over Hillary. CNN/WMUR has it at 10 points, 29-28, while an earlier Rasmussen poll put the lead at 12 points, 39-27. John Edwards is third.
On the Republican side, McCain’s lead is 4 points in USA/Today, 34-30, 6 points in CNN/WMUR, 32-26, and 2 points in Rasmussen, 32-30. The real shocker will be a first- or second-place showing by Mike Huckabee in New Hampshire, a state without the strong evangelical Christian base that turned out for him in Iowa.
New Hampshire is important to both Romney and McCain. Romney needs the momentum for the South Carolina primary and McCain needs New Hampshire for staying power. He won it eight years ago.
The word “change” was bandied about a great deal this weekend — a response to the Iowa vote. “Change is a slogan, and the examination has to be is it change for the good or change for bad?” said Rudy Giuliani, who polls at 8-11 percent in New Hampshire.
There’s no doubt the candidate associated with the word — Obama — is on a roll. The Rev. Raphael Warnock, preaching Sunday morning at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, praised his success in Iowa. “Anytime a man named Barack Hussein Obama … can win in Iowa…there is a God.”
As Giuliani says, though, there’s change for the good and change for the bad. The policies espoused by the Democratic front-runners, especially on Iraq, are not changes for the good.
