I went to a public California high school in the East Bay in northern California. During my senior year, state budget cuts hit the public education system. Every teacher and every program was in the line of fire, and the situation is getting worse every year. Therefore, parcel tax measures have recently been a huge part of local politics.
One might blame the government for mishandling tax revenue, but as the most recent article in the student newspaper, the Blueprint, points out, others claim the problem is that “the teachers’ union…owns the state legislature” (see article). The California teachers’ union is a political powerhouse, and it has fought long and hard for decreased classroom size. This brings up the debate over which is more important: keeping teachers in their jobs and keeping class sizes down or continuing to fund more student programs. Personally, if I had the option of sitting on the floor all day in classes with 40 people or having my student newspaper cut, I’d choose sitting on the floor. I think every student at my school would do the same for their student organization, or to keep the opportunity to take AP courses.
How people feel about the parcel tax measures has a lot to do with the “feel-good” aspect of wanting everyone to contribute to the education of the "future of America". Therefore, those who oppose the parcel tax get a bad reputation for being greedy and selfish when really, they have the same interests at heart. As more free-market oriented, anti-regulatory voters, their stance stems from less faith in the ability of local level (and probably all levels of) government bureaucracy to handle something as important and serious as a crisis in the education system. They also have a different basic concept of how the economy functions in the long run. They call for temporary difficulty in favor of long-term gain, saying that, instead of tax increases that may erode the tax base and reduce tax revenue, we should encourage private fundraising by those whose interests are most invested in the education system.
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