Military Children Are Being Held Hostage

By bad schools and bad school systems.

In honor of National School Choice Week, I am writing about a subject very near and dear to my heart, military child education.

When it comes to the short end of the straw, military children get it time and time again--whether in times of war or peace. They move and start over every couple years in and out of public school systems who could give two bits less about them except for the federal moneys they bring with them. Mind you, these school systems are mostly located in areas whose ENTIRE ECONOMY is centered around the existence of that military base. Every year, these school systems receive extra funding for having active duty military attend their schools. Recently, due to the unignorable inadequacy of these military child holding pens masquerading as schools, the DOD has decided to give them even MORE money to the tune of $250M.

Here's the dirty little secret that every single military parent knows. It doesn't matter how much money you pour into those school systems, it still won't fix the problem. Because when it comes right down to it, money is not the problem: lack of control over our children's education is. They are giving this money to crappy local school districts [on top of the federal subsidy they receive per child of non-resident active duty attending their school] and the military members have ABSOLUTELY NO SAY in how that money is allocated. The local school boards are elected by local residents and they are usually entrenched local yokels who have little to no connection to the military. How about we create thresholds where for every 10% of military children attending a school district, they have to reserve one voting seat on their school board for an active duty military member either electable or appointed by the local base commander. Then we tie the federal subsidies to fulfillment of this threshold requirement. Most military members I know would jump at the chance to be civic leaders where they are stationed, but they face the common obstacle in that they are unknowns in the community.

Right now, 32% of all homeschooled children are military. That's insane. I have a lot of friends who homeschool for various reasons, but the biggest one being they can't afford private schools that are 1] better able to control the fluidity and quality of their children's education and 2] have the ability to better control the self-esteem sapping pitfall of constantly being a new kid or outsider. Then there are parents like myself who spend every bit of our tiny military expendable income on private school for our children. On an officer's income it's a stretch and just another sacrifice we make as part of serving our country, but on an enlisted income it's an impossibility. To me, that is just unconscionable. We have laid just one more burden on the military spouse to not only get by as a single parent deployment after deployment, but now they have the extra added burden of homeschooling their children because no reasonable sane person could send their children to local public schools.

A further solution to the problem military families face would be to give military families the federal subsidy check. Let them get their kids into local private schools and subsidize their tuition!! Where I live in CA, the base schools are run by the CA school system. The same CA school system who, as of 2007 was ranked 46th of all states. FORTY-SIXTH. It should be noted, however, that the average classroom teacher salary in CA is over $69K per annum only to be outspent by second ranked Massachusetts at $71K per annum. Obviously CA is doing something wrong here. The school district where I would be forced to send my children is ranked 574/766 of all the districts in the forty-sixth worst state for education. The best rated local elementary school is rated 946 in the state out of 5188. Most of the children attending that school are children of field grade and above officers. The other base option is number 4513/5188. See where I am going with this?

The aforementioned 946th ranked elementary school raises $80K in extra funds from the parents over the course of the year. Yet their kindergarten class has 40 kids to one teacher, no aide, and no special subjects like art, music, gym, or technology. Pathetic. The local Catholic schools raise less than that per year yet costs $4500/student to educate [as opposed to the $8700 per pupil in the public school district]. Their student to teacher ratio is 10:1 while the public school district claims to be 16:1. This is truly an outrage. Let's save some money, DOD, and subsidize private school tuition instead of crappy mismanaged leeching school districts. Give our military children and families a chance.

The Problem With Perry

Let me preface this entire post by saying that I will vote for Rick Perry over Barack Obama in a general election. I will HATE doing it. I mean, I will absolutely loathe myself in that I-need-to-take-an-hour-long-hot-shower-and-still-won't-feel-clean-enough loathing for voting for Rick Perry. To me, in the contest of the lesser of two evils, well, Perry wins hands down. But I am the exception.

Rick Perry is unelectable versus Barack Obama. Period. The End. I don't care how much money the man has. I don't. Rick Perry will never win against Obama and it has nothing to do with the merits of his candidacy. It has everything to do with Barack Obama's ability to run against George W. Bush.

In the 2008 election, Obama ran not against McCain, but Bush. He was elected not for McCain or Palin's inadequacies, but for Bush's. For the last three years we have heard nothing but "Blame Bush" for every failure of his administration. Essentially, the man has run a perpetual campaign against George W. Bush for the last four years. And now in the face of this, there is a camp of people who want to place a drawling swaggering Texan with half the talent and capability of our last drawling swaggering Texan in a position to run against him. Why don't we just GIVE this administration another four years?

If there is one thing that the last three years has taught us it is that there is only one thing Barack H. Obama can do successfully and that is BLAME BUSH. So WHY in a million zillion years would anyone in their right mind pick a candidate with the accent and mannerisms of the second coming of Bush to face a person who has made a successful career out of villainizing him?

It is obvious that many have never gotten over 2000. Every presidential election since has been a 2000 rematch. Even an election where Bush was not a candidate. Two thousand twelve will be no exception.

Happy Saturday

Res ipsa loquitur

Before There Was Cordray...

Two months ago, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter questioned Interim Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Raj Date. One has got to wonder if they've consolidated the authority of the new director and phased out Mr. Date or if he's still operating in his capacity as interim director and the American Taxpayer is now paying two people do the same job? Go efficiency!

New Year's Resolutions

Christmas has ended and we have all been hearing about the resolutions; resolutions to save more money, turn off the TV, get organized, lose weight. Since both of my children recently became school age and we are stationed in a place for too short a time for me to justify the expense and time spent studying and taking the bar in our current jurisdiction, I spent last year's resolutions on taking time for myself. I focused on doing things I've always wanted to do, but haven't had the time for: learning to play guitar and learning to sew. While these are both crafts that require years of study and practice, I feel confident enough to say that I have hit a level of competence to say that I, in fact, can do these activities. [Notice my purposeful omission of any mention of skill level. ;)] With the guitar I have found a new outlet for my passion for music and it's a heck of a lot lighter than carrying a piano around. :)

Facing a similar year, I was at a loss. I'm happy enough with my weight and have a healthy lifestyle, but I'm not kidding myself that, at 37 years old, I will ever fit my curves into designer size 4 ever again--certainly not with these Italian genes. We're doing quite a bit of traveling this year, so that would be a convenient one to make, but kind of a cop out don't you think? Until yesterday, I had relegated myself to no resolutions this year and to stick to just trying to keep my head above water in my oh so glamorous life as a mother and wife. Basically, I resolved to have no resolve in 2012.

Until yesterday...

Yesterday, I was chatting with a parent of one of my daughter's classmates. He said he had heard I was a lawyer. [The going reaction is usually one of surprise given that my uniform these days is jeans, boots, and a sweater.] I said I was. We talked and I mentioned that I had done a little political writing. I almost fell over when he handed me his card and asked me to e-mail him a sample. I went home and looked through past posts [that I had removed from this site and saved] and selected one to send. In doing so, I realized how much I missed having an outlet for my voice and given the political season, I realized my 2012 resolution.

So here is to 2012 and finding resolve.