Posted on: Tuesday, April 27, 2004

EDITORIAL
School money should not be about politics

It is as simple as this: Legislators who hope to be re-elected must take care of their home district, first and foremost.

So it is hardly surprising that the construction budget for our public schools reflects legislative priorities as much as it does those of the Department of Education.

Still, this is no way to run a construction program. We end up with a system that depends on legislative and political power as much as it does common sense.

Education writer Derrick DePledge reports that only about half of the Department of Education's top-priority construction projects made it into next year's budget. At the same time, some $46 million was allotted to other projects, including 23 that are not even in the department's long-term construction plan.

This perverts what should be a straightforward system.

The Department of Education should pay close attention to lawmakers and include their concerns in the long-term construction budget. But it makes little sense to substitute political power and influence for what should be a rational process of allocating scarce construction dollars.

This is an era where all the talk is about giving greater autonomy and decision-making power to educators on the front line. Under that philosophy, it should be school officials and administrators who decide where scarce construction and repair dollars are spent.