You wanna know something funny? "Tar-baby" has a bad connotation. Something sticky that will get all over you and if you touch it you'll never be able to get loose. But there are "good" tar-babies. Ones that are big. Ones that come with huge amounts of public money. Money viewed by politicians as "free." If you can stick yourself or your program to one of these tar-babies you are made. And the biggest of these is public education.
Think about it. Never-ending stream of funding. Max out property tax? No problemo. You think it is hard to pass an ESPLOST? Really? So if you can hook up, in any way, shape or form, with public education it is like being besties with someone who prints money. And whatever it is you offer, product, service, program, it doesn't matter, does not really need to work. At least not any better than the education component and we all know how well that works.
Problems arise when there are parts of the puzzle that cannot grow at metastatic rates. Social programs are easy. Free lunch not enough? Hey, let's wash their clothes---that'll learn 'em. But what happens when you run out of space? Buildings take too much time for the Silver Bullet Lifecycle and property only helps developers who for whatever reason aren't beholden to PS101. Maybe they have a real job. But the educrats have their bandaid ready: portable classrooms. These are what rednecks would call "trailers" but without all the fixin's. Like that washer/dryer combo.
But it doesn't fix the "land is expensive" problem. Rednecks to the rescue once again.
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| All it needs is solar panels and a windmill |
Here's where that Education Imagination comes in. You gotta git out yer crayons and construction paper and re-draw these here redneck trailers to be them thar school trailers. Now if you're clever, as some rednecks have been, you can rack and stack these bad boys AND leave all the parking spaces underneath. Here in daVille that would address the hysterical voices raised high and loud over the loss of parking spaces at the high school. Get the Boy Scouts involved and you've got a win-win. Find someone with a welding badge who lusts after Eagle status and have him weld up the frame. That'll work.
All public education needs to thrive is a little more imagination. Oh, yeah. And more money.
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