We Don't Need No Education

Physical Education and other programs would be cut from the Portland Public Schools curriculum as a cost-saving measure intended to "plug" a $19 million shortfall in funding.  Oh, really?  A "shortfall"?

We spend thirteen thousand dollars per student, per year, passed some truly troubling tax measures just months ago, and PPS has a "shortfall" that will require it to cut PE and other programs?  Sorry, folks - that doesn't wash.  PPS doesn't have a funding shortfall by any stretch of imagination - what it has is a lack of discipline and sound fiduciary oversight.

Of course, that's pretty much standard for Portland.  Our politicians have loftier priorities:  we can build an iconic and sustainable and really spiffy new bridge for light rail and streetcars and bicycles and pedestrians.  We can let the workhorse bridges that actually carry freight and services crumble into dust, and the kids don't need exercise at school anyway, because they'll be walking to transit stations all of their adult lives.

Roads, generally speaking, are Very Bad, and must at all costs be discouraged.  An ideal Portland road looks like this: 
  

Comments

[ZZMike]

$13k/student? To take a note from the Viet Nam war, wouldn't you get better results from the kids if you just gave them each $10k/year (thus saving $3k/year), and let them enroll in classy private schools? (With some incentive, of course, to make sure they do. Like, check the enrollment registers at schools like the Cordon Bleu and Larry's Automotive Tech School.)

And why is that every time someone suggests a spending cut, they all cry out "we can't cut the school budget, or the police, or the firemen, or the unicorn keepers!!!"

As if those were the only budget items.

(Los Angeles, another city with one foot in quicksand, had to fire "lay off" some 200 workers (out of about 200,000 [not making this up]). That triggered a clause in the union contract whereby EVERYBODY still working gets a hefty raise. The city may break even in 25 years.)

[Max]

LA will never break even, unless a really big quake hits.