Yes or No? How 'bout Other

People who do not believe that surveys skew the desired response don't get it: if you ask a question that has only 2 possible responses, you probably can design the question to get the desired answer, thus "proving" your bias. This happens all the time with true/false quizzes in education; thus, I gave a quiz to a class for which all the responses were the same. The students, many of whom work a system to score well on both T-F and multiple choice tests, were incensed. As one student so aptly stated, "If all the answers were false, it wasn't a 'true-false' quiz."

That was my point: I designed a quiz to prove a point. Students who depend on life to be fair, to follow the rules, to conform to their study habits/intellectual ability, are going to be ... disappointed. Learn the lesson and move beyond your limited parameters.

This morning, the on-line local newspaper asks another one of its survey questions: are you willing to pay higher taxes to fund education? My response: hell, no! This is not because I do not believe in education, but because I know there are other options. Raising taxes v maintaining the status quo is one option, not the only option.

People who are professional organizers teach us all a strong lesson: our treasures are someone else's trash. When an organizer comes into a home or office, s/he sees the task from an impartial point of view and makes 3 piles: keep, toss, donate. The process is less painful for the people who want to hold onto everything that defines their life, past and present, and life moves beyond the clutter. It's a win/win. Both state governments and schools need the objective professionals to examine where money is spent and how it can be spent differently. Once the decks are cleared of the clutter, the focus can become wiser allocations of resources, rather than business as usual.

The problem stems from how we allocate our resources, not the lack of them. I recently read that all state employees are keeping their provided cars, as well as their car allowance. If it's required to do the job, make a vehicle available when it's necessary to do the job; however, allowing thousands of employees to enjoy the benefits of a second car without any of the financial responsibility for it is no longer a financially sound option in the state of Cally-phone-ya. Take the cars away; don't provide the high-level cell phone and the free cell service; don't provide the laptop as a take-home option for employees; and cut the number and costs of the free "business" lunches.

Next to go is the office/campus copy machine. If all the crap we determine necessary to get the job done is composed and saved onto a computer, we could use the technology to move beyond the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent annually on paper/copy machine maintainance and repair. At the office, send an electronic memo, rather than a paper copy. Project the image onto a screen at the front of the room during the lecture and send a copy to the kid's laptop, cell phone, or other digital device. Even though the student probably will not take notes during the lecture and the office recipient will delete the memo, there is the "paperless" trail to assure that it was sent to the recipients's electronic device. The side benefit from going green is that employees and students may learn how to do more with the devices than txt, shop on-line, and play games during business hours!!

In education, draw back on the endless employee in-services and conferences that are at best self-serving. Once a person reaches the 10-year mark in a career, it becomes redundant to sit through a in-service designed for the new kids on the campus. When entire days are set aside to exchange pleasantries as a staff, it may look good in an accreditation report, but it's a waste of time, talent, and financial resources. Small groups for shorter times can probably be at least as effective as large groups for longer periods of time, and the school doesn't have to shut down to accomplish the in-service goals.

Finally, cut everyone's pay by a dime a day: everyone's pay, top down, bottom up in all levels of state government and education. If it's such a big deal as a pay raise that civil service employees and educators are willing to go on strike to get it, it must be a big enough deal to make a huge difference in the state's budget. Consider the dime a day the cost of employees who do personal business during the work day, who stretch the coffee breaks and lunch hours because "they don't pay me enough" in the first place. Stealing time is still stealing, so a dime a day could even out the theft of time. Put the money back into the state's budget and save a tax increase.

Demand that both government and education work within the same parameters of resources/expenses that we, the people, have to work within. We don't get a free car, free cell phones and service, free lunches, and we have to pay for the copywork when we need to make copies, so we have to cut expenses to conform to our income. The state, as well as the educational system, can at least pretend to do the same, rather than ask the people to plant yet another money tree in the backyard to pay for the decisions of the policymakers to spend, spend, spend.