There were several initiatives on the ballot in Washington state this election. Washington state voters got two of them exactly wrong: Ballot Initiative 1052, sponsored by Tim Eyman was passed. Ballot Initiative 1070, endorsed by Bill Gates, Sr. was voted down.
These two ballot choices as made will have profound and detrimental effects on YOUR schools.
Several years ago, I was told by someone who had access to the data, that there are only two primary factors that are predictive of student success and therefor the success of the schools the students attend: parental education and parental income. These two factors predicting the success of schools have a confidence of 95 percent. No other factor rises to predict success with any degree of significance. The data from which the statistics were compiled was sufficiently widely gathered to allow the conclusion that while many different modes of teaching can be applied, in the end, it is parents' expectations that a student follow in their footsteps or climb on their shoulders and the money they pay in taxes that make successful schools. Local tax bases vary in their ability to support their schools and so it falls on the higher levels of government, such as the state, to provide equalization.
It follows, then, that the best thing that our state government can do to support our schools is to ensure that we give every one of them the money they need to support their students. Oddly enough, that thought is enshrined in the Washington State Constitution, in Article IX:
SECTION 1 PREAMBLE. It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.
And, in fact, "a Superior Court judge on Feb. 4, 2010, ruled the State in violation of its constitutionally mandated "paramount duty" to amply provide for the education of all children." (McCleary v. State of Washington)
So, how did we get here? On the Secretary of State's list was this initiative:
Ballot Title
Statement of Subject: Initiative Measure No. 1069 concerns the state seal.
Concise Description: This measure would require the Washington State Seal to depict a tapeworm attached to a taxpayer’s intestine, encircled by the words: Committed to sucking the life blood out of each and every taxpayer
It didn't pass, but too many believe it and voted against a sensible tax to finance education and for a rule to make it more difficult to raise revenue from new sources.
But to believe that government is a parasite, you must forget that government taxes pay for the roads we use to get to and from work, for the public safety in which we live and travel, and a host of other things (like schools) that make our days better than they were before that are handled poorly, if at all, by private enterprise. That our government is a parasite is a fool's thought, willfully ignorant of what is rather than what is imagined to be.