School funding important for community’s future

During a recent conversation with a friend, the topic of citizenship arose.

He suggested that responsible citizenship involves giving more to your country than it gives, or has the potential to give, to you. The ability to be a responsible citizen, as defined here, is unequivocally related to the quality of education a student receives in school. By devoting taxpayer dollars to education in our borough we, as taxpaying citizens, have the ability to influence the long-term future of our communities and our state, whether or not we have children in school. By funding education, we not only give Mat-Su Borough students a chance to be responsible members of our citizenry, but we also ensure our communities will continue to thrive, supported by a productive workforce endowed with skilled tradesmen and knowledgeable professionals, and sustained by effective schools.

Our conversation was timely — it is budget time again for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and, inevitably, that indicates that it is also budget time for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District. Non-tenured teachers hold their collective breath in anticipation of a contract for next year, administrators and counselors hold theirs in anticipation of the possibility of staffing changes as they begin to hash out next year’s schedules, and all district employees sit at the edge of their proverbial seats as we wait to hear the numbers that will be released by the state and the borough assembly, which will indelibly affect each of the 16,600 Mat-Su students next year.

Similarly, taxpayers hold their breath in anticipation of knowing where their hard-earned dollars are going to be spent, many of whom do not have children in school, have not had children in school for many years, or never will have children in school. Consequently, the millions of dollars that the Mat-Su Borough spends on education have the potential of being a bitter pill to swallow for some residents. This is understandable.

However, recently on an NPR show a guest speaker suggested that due to the youth of our country (as compared to countries in Europe, for example) Americans have a tendency when funding projects to be more focused on the immediate future rather than future generations. There may be no research to substantiate this claim, but if for argument’s sake it can be given credence, it may apply to the budding state and borough.

Last year when the borough’s budget was being considered, very few borough residents sent our assembly members positive correspondence regarding funds for education. As a consequence, education was not funded to the cap. That is, the borough is permitted by the state to allocate “x” dollars for education. In the FY10 budget the state’s maximum funding amount (or cap) was set at about $57 million, the borough allocated approximately $45 million to education, or $12 million under the cap. Despite this, the Mat-Su Borough School District is currently making gains, specifically in reading. The achievement can be in part attributed to a new district initiative that involves significant focus on teacher training; research shows that one of the most important factors relating to student success is quality of instruction. Training teachers requires money.

Sincerely, I do not support funding education to the cap for the FY11 budget simply because teachers “need higher salaries” to do their jobs. On the contrary, I write this because I understand that in order to make the Mat-Su Borough’s teachers more effective, it will take more money. I write this because I see a direct correlation between our community’s future and the education of its students. I write this because they are not just “my students,” they are not just “someone else’s kids,” but because they are “our future.” We will depend on the abilities of these students for generations to come, and if we truly care about our community, if we have pride in our community, we will proudly support our community’s students, no matter whose children they are. I write this because I believe what Ben Franklin penned generations ago, “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”

The borough assembly will meet April 6 at 6 p.m. The MSBSD budget should be presented to the borough assembly during this meeting. More details can be found on the Mat-Su Borough website. During this year’s budgeting process, please stay informed of public hearing dates; information regarding these dates will be available on the school district’s website at www.matsuk12.us. Be an active participant in local democracy. Make your voice heard in support of Mat-Su students.

Claudia Berkley teaches at Glacier View School.