Herald Community Newpapers
We offer our endorsement of the 2007-08 Lawrence school district budget, despite the fact that it provides for virtually no growth in the schools.
We don't question the fiscally conservative impulses that have informed the school board's decision to draft a budget that is only $825,000 above expenditures in the current budget. It is admirable that during the past four years of austerity, the district has been able to maintain millions of dollars in surpluses each year. But with the increasingly urgent needs to upgrade the public school infrastructure, we wonder whether a zero-growth spending plan will simply translate into higher costs in the near future.
The increase in the proposed $92.7 million budget is accounted for by two items: four new teaching positions, which will cost an estimated $225,000, and transportation costs of $600,000 relating to the new pre-K busing program for all students in the district.
We question whether that line item will truly cover those transportation costs in the end, and we wonder whether it may carry an unforeseen debt, in the form of programs that may have to be reduced to accommodate pre-K busing.
Things seem to be at sixes and sevens, to borrow a line from a popular children's fantasy story, with candidates supported by the Advocates for Lawrence Public Schools opposing passage of the school budget, while ALPs itself and the Lawrence Teachers Association officially maintain neutrality on the issue.
The stance of those actors in this recurring Five Towns play send a potentially powerful message to residents who would normally be lining up at the voting booth to pull levers in support of the budget. If public-school parents mobilize to kill the budget, the net result will be a loss of $500,000 in a computer equipment grant, according to Superintendent Dr. John Fitzsimons.
Perhaps, in the long run, it doesn't much matter whether next year's budget meets with approval or not. The larger question the zero-growth approach begs is how maintaining minimal public-school services really helps anyone in the community.
We support passage of the budget because another failed budget gets the district nowhere better than it is. At least a passed budget this time may set in motion a constructive momentum that will carry the district forward to a positive future.
There is, ultimately, no practicable way for a private-school system to supplant a public-school system. The current formula, hewing to austerity or near-austerity, seems to us to threaten the viability of both systems, to the detriment of those who have no opportunity to express their opinion: the children in the schools, both private and public, who simply want a good education.
In Lawrence, Marcus, Levey and Sussman
It comes as no surprise that this year's Lawrence school board elections have been contentious -- even venomous -- though the level of invective has sunk to despicable lows. At a time when plenty of real issues should rightfully have dominated the debates, the campaigns have descended into poisonous accusations based on religion from one side, and an unseemly victimization from the other, neither of which advance the likelihood of improving the education of children in the district.
When voters head to the polls on Tuesday, we hope they'll support the candidates that have best articulated their experience, enthusiasm, civility and good intentions on behalf of all the district's children. Basing votes on anything else will get the district nowhere.
In the race between Andrew Levey and Dr. Sol Blisko, we believe Levey represents the sort of positive, solution-oriented thinking the school board desperately needs. A public-school parent who is an unabashed advocate for public-school interests, Levey also demonstrates sensitivity to the needs of children in the public and private schools.
Levey favors committing all of the $27.5 million from the sale of the Number 1 School property to a capital reserve fund to cover infrastructure needs. Like his fellow ALPS candidates, he supports the concept of universal pre-K busing, but feels the board is playing fast and loose with its figures for that program.
Blisko, while qualified -- he is a former board member -- was drafted into his current role. We applaud his sense of self-sacrifice, but we think Levey is the kind of proactive problem-solver this board needs to get things done.
In Nahum Marcus and Maribel Cancelliere, voters face a choice between two people who express sincere compassion for all children in the school district. That compassion speaks louder than the fact that Marcus's children attend yeshivas and Cancelliere has children in Lawrence public schools.
Cancelliere would provide a voice for minority students in the district. Marcus, the parent of a special-needs child, would provide a voice for that segment of the student population. We think that Marcus is the better qualified candidate of the two. He exhibits a firmer grasp of the issues at hand, and firmly believes that the vitriol that characterizes Lawrence school board sessions must cease in favor of reasoned dialogue that seeks ground for compromise.
Marcus has publicly endorsed the idea of a school board that will advocate for all district students. He is openly critical of the public animosity displayed by board members, and he seems sincerely interested in promoting unity. Marcus unreservedly favors the pre-K busing plan. He argues that emergency repairs should be addressed right away, and he believes in maintaining a reserve fund in anticipation of other capital needs. Indeed, he says that a third of the Number 1 School proceeds should be spent now on repairs, a third should be reserved, and a third should be refunded to taxpayers as a rebate.
Finally, we come to the sad race between the two board incumbents, Pam Greenbaum and Dr. David Sussman. Greenbaum has been unfairly slammed online and has been a lightning rod for criticism from community members who are private-school advocates. Sussman presents himself as the candidate of compromise who can bridge the gap between the lines of battle now formed.
The ads that appeared in the Herald last week from Greenbaum's camp were offensive, and reveal more than we wished were true about the extent of her inability to work on the board as it is presently constituted. The very fact that she would give up her seat to run against Sussman tells us much: that she would rather not serve on the board at all than serve on the board along with him. This is surely not the sign of a person who thinks she can get along with others to achieve a worthy goal.
So we endorse Sussman. While we have reservations, at least Sussman articulates the intention of "seeing both sides" and trying to act harmoniously when it's possible, listening to everybody before deciding on issues. There's never been a better time for him to put his deeds where his rhetoric is.
