School officials here on the North Shore might take a hint from the mayor of Haverhill who is recommending that his school system use at least a portion of its $1 million share of federal Race to the Top money to buy new textbooks.
Textbooks are obviously not a one-time-only purchase, but they are not the kind of annual expense that a new program or new staff members would be. The last thing the schools should do with one-time federal money is to create or expand ongoing expenses.
Of course, the cities and towns doesn't have a completely free hand in spending this money. There are definitive "guidelines" — which is another way of saying "strings" — attached to this money.
The Obama administration has said it wants Race to the Top money used for state-approved "innovation" projects such as increasing teacher performance evaluations, improving the lowest achieving schools and expanding the use of test data to shape teaching.
But "innovation" has been an educational buzzword for decades. It is unlikely that some change in teaching technique with a fancy name is going to solve the problems plaguing our worst-performing schools.
These schools and others would be better served if school committees and city and town leaders would push for the "innovative" idea of furnishing students with the basics — up-to-date, well-written textbooks.
It is also unfortunate that school districts don't have the freedom to use as they see fit money coming from yet another federal stimulus bill, the $26.1-billion Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act. That money can't be saved for a rainy day or used for one-time purposes. It has to be spent, and only on teacher salaries.
That may avert some layoffs or be enough even to hire some more teachers. But unless such largesse is going to become an annual event — and there is little evidence that it will — it will simply put off the problem until next year and transfer the burden of paying those expenses to homeowners via the property tax.
Beyond that, why are federal stimulus dollars being continually used to inflate the public sector? The stimulus was sold with the promise that it would revitalize the private sector, and that it would hold unemployment to less than 8 percent. Instead, both state and national unemployment are at more than 9 percent, and the vast majority of the stimulus money has gone into the public, not the private, sector.
This amounts to a Scarlett O'Hara fiscal policy: We have a problem? Let's think about that tomorrow.
The problem is that it is past tomorrow. Putting off the day of reckoning will just make things worse.
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