The Popular Capitalist View

The election of the next New Jersey Governor is fast upon us with only one real issue being addressed, that of property taxes and the public education system which it currently funds.  Each of the three major candidates – and by “major” I mean that they are on the ballot and on television – has taken up a predictable strategic position on this issue.

The Democratic incumbent looks at who is inclined or might be convinced to vote for a Democratic candidate and notices that most of them rent.  They do not care about property taxes; that is their landlord’s problem and they are not exactly friends.  Even among the homeowners in the Democratic base, the bigger concern is with their local school, especially if they are depending on their high school seniors getting scholarships to pay for college based on good grades at good schools.  The appeal of the Democrat to these voters that he is “investing in our future” and “has the right priorities” is signaling that he will make sure that the schools will have a great reputation no matter what the cost.  He throws a bone to the stray non-Democrat that he will increase taxes on the “wealthy” — and by “wealthy” he means those with high incomes serving as sacrificial lambs for inherited or previously acquired wealth – rather than increase the property tax, or not too much.  Yes, he will really try this time to keep property taxes under control as he makes the tough choices of how to pay for education.

The Republican challenger looks at who is inclined or might be convinced to vote for a Republican candidate and notices that most of them own their own home, with a good number of those no longer having children in the public schools, if they ever did.  Even if they have school-age children, these voters have been long since disaffected by the incessant Democratic Party propaganda which so many of the teachers engage in, that they have opted out and enrolled their children in private or religious schools.  Overwhelmingly, the Republican base gains no benefit from the public school and sees the property taxes which pay for them as wasted money.  They hear about the “Obama hymn” in Burlington and, though disgusted, they are not surprised: “Typical!” would be their cry.  Thus, the pledge of the Republican to reduce property taxes by reducing spending is signaling that he is going to not only run a tight ship but, if necessary to reduce property taxes to bearable levels, will not be afraid to gut the schools by forcing the districts to make do with austerity budgets.  To the stray non-Republican, he throws the bone of  “charter schools” which are supposed to be an improvement over existing inner-city public schools.  He thus makes his appeal to the parents of children in truly awful high schools and, though he expects this to save a lot of money, he assures them that he is doing this to make the schools better for the kids.  Yes, he will really try not to shortchange education as he makes the tough decisions of how to balance the budget while cutting taxes.

The major independent candidate takes up a middle position of promising voters that they can have their cake and eat it, too.  In all candor, he must admit that the cake is not appetizing, nor much of a prize to hold.  Still, he is hoping that enough Democratic voters are fed up with the corruption and scandals in their party and governor that they will switch to him as a friend to education in some vague, general sense.  With more emphasis, he is pledging to reduce property taxes and even has a plan for that, appealing to Republican voters straight up.  The details show that he is targeting the blue-collar Republican voters because they would rather be taxed on income they don’t have than on the assessed value of the property they do.  The impression is thus left that the major independent is a spoiler for the Democrats, taking away more votes from the Republican than the Democratic candidate.  Insidious allegations are made that he was “entered into” the race for this express purpose.

I would agree with the former statement, but not the latter.  The major independent was, perhaps, overly confident about the number of voters willing to vote for him because he was neither Democrat nor Republican.  Most likely, he still is as he seeks to broaden his appeal beyond that base to other voters most likely to vote against the Democratic incumbent.  However, neither he nor the Republican challenger, who is also courting the disaffected Democrats, seem to recognize that they need to appeal also to the Democrats who are not disaffected in order to win the election.  If the major independent becomes a spoiler, it will because the Republican candidate let him be one by failing to go after the Democratic base.  One or both of these challengers need to advocate and highlight an explicit plan for educational reform that is fundamentally that and believably so.  I am not, however, optimistic that they can do so with about a week before the election.

You will note that I have not mentioned names in this discourse.  That is because from the popular capitalist perspective, the personalities involved in drafting policy are less important to the people than the policy itself.  I will offer up my own, Carl Peter Klapper, as the creator and most interested advocate of the policy I put forward now.  Though you will not see me on the ballot, you can write my name in for Governor of New Jersey.  Or, since we have the new, undefined, yet very public office of Lieutenant Governor, you can write me in for that and confound the parties in the game of unblemished electoral lambs they have been playing by creating this office.  So, without further ado, here is the Popular Capitalist view of and plan for property taxes and educational reform.

1. Abolish property taxes.  Just off them in true Soprano State fashion.  We defer discussion of the education budget and funding until later.  Besides, property taxes have nothing to do with that.  It was always a false connection, a Gordian knot tying property taxes to school budgets.  What smart people like Alexander the Great do with a Gordian knot is to cut it.  And so do we.
2. Put the schools under the jurisdiction of the municipalities, under a municipal education department.  In some cases, schools would be administered at the county level on behalf of municipalities where the school population is too small.  This makes the schools accountable to the people in the town or county where they operate and thus far more accountable to anybody than the cross-jurisdictional school districts are.  Further, this makes all school staff and administrators municipal employees and appointed officials.
3. Standardize position descriptions, the formula for staffing levels and pay scales at the state level.  This would be a decision by the Governor and the executive branch which needs to stay within the budget authorized by the legislature for education as for all other municipal, county and state agencies and departments. The state budget for municipal and county educational staffing will pay for all mandated positions, which I will make almost entirely for teachers. The municipalities and the counties would still be able to fund additional positions through their own revenue.  This reform prevents the featherbedding abuses that are keeping money from being spent on our children.
4. Establish a New Jersey Board of Regents with a charge to create a published course-based curriculum for all public schooling through masters level, design certifying examinations for every course,  frequently administer these exams and establish course requirements for diplomas and degrees. The Board will consist of current presidents of colleges and universities in New Jersey, receiving a small stipend for their time in meetings to set policy and appoint chiefs of each curriculum subject department.  The staff of the board will be led by these chiefs, who are experts in their subjects.  This method of certification and granting diplomas and degrees will allow pupils from a variety of educational settings to proceed independently and receive their high school diplomas when they have mastered the courses required for graduation.  This will be a drastic improvement over the current “social advancement” method which moves students through the schools and graduates them for warming a chair.
5. Allow municipal education departments to offer elective courses for which they may charge a fee.  This would be the preferred way for municipalities to pay for their local educational offerings.  An education department may choose to open some courses to adults.
6. As part of my proposal for establishing municipal medical departments, a medical curriculum will be devised and staff allocated to each municipality to teach courses in medicine leading to certification as doctors and nurses.
7. Change the school calendar to an annual trimester system, with the school day expanded to 8 hours.  In transitioning from the current grade-level system, kindergarten and grades 2, 4, 6 and 8 would be taught in one trimester and grades 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 would be taught in two trimesters.  This would not only streamline the traditional K-12 education, it would also allow college-level courses to be taught at an earlier age and, because of the independent administration of the Regents exams through masters, allow diligent students in whatever neighborhoods to earn a college or post-graduate degree without leaving their homes or having to pay to go to college.  As an aside, speaking as someone whose family could not afford vacation trips, I would have much rather accelerated through school during the summer vacation months than to try to stay cool in the sweltering heat of July and August.  I expect that this is the view of poor students throughout New Jersey.

It should be clear now why I did not immediately describe how education would be paid for in the absence of a property tax.  The educational reforms I am proposing change the nature and costs of the educational system, as any real reform must.  You can go through my points and see reduced and additional costs, but in the absence of any measure or approximation of the magnitude of those ups and down you would be at a loss to determine whether we spend less or more after the reforms.  However, if you consider which governments pay for this system and which elected body decides what will be paid, the improvement is clear.

Under the current system, property owners pay for the system in their town, even though they might not have had children, let alone children in school now.  This sets up a false conflict between property owners and parents of school-age children.  The property owners are paying through municipal governments for systems administered by separate school districts representing the parents of schoolchildren and the teachers’ union.  But even the school districts do not always determine school expenses.  The state issues unfunded mandates regularly dictating what must be paid.  But whether the state or the school districts decide the school budget, those are different governmental entities representing different constituencies from those who pay the bills.  Consequently, the people can choose neither the quality of schooling nor its expense.  Parents, like myself, who want better public education for their children and are willing to pay for it are forced into austerity budgets by homeowners who don’t, and vice versa.  The teachers’ union, an entity unto itself that controls the state, forces bad schools on the  parents and extravagant budgets on the homeowners.

In my administration, the people, not the parents, nor the homeowners,  nor yet the teacher’s union, would decide what will be spent on instruction and will pay for it themselves.  If the people decide through their state assembly and senators that they are willing to pay x dollars for instruction in the public schools, then x dollars will be paid for by state revenue in the state budget, and the Governor will structure the pay for teachers, principals and other school workers so that the state school budget adequately staffs the schools.  If some teachers or administrators think they can do better outside the state or teaching, nothing is keeping them from leaving and nothing is keeping the municipal education departments from replacing them.  If the pay scale is not realistic in one or more areas, then there will be a shortage which will force the Governor to either increase pay in those areas or reduce staffing requirements until the pay scale and the staffing requirements are consistent with the budget and the labor market.  If the people in a municipality want to expand offerings, they can do so and place the burden on those parents and students who wanted the new classes through course fees.  Further, the students themselves can determine how many classes they need to attend by taking and passing some Regents course exams without instruction.  Students could even earn degrees locally without the expense of college, a great boon for their parents that would more than compensate for the minor cost of the Regents exams for college courses and any state-mandated or locally offered classes their children require.  Lest we forget, this applies to medical education as well, opening up this field to children from poor families without the debilitating med school loans and with a ready opportunity in the many municipal medical departments throughout the state.

So I ask the Democratic voters, particularly, why vote for a Democratic candidate who does not offer you what I have: a public educational system that serves you and the aspirations of your children?  If you agree that I would do a better job, if you share my dream of helping our children fulfill their dreams, then help our cause by spreading the word and writing in Carl Peter Klapper for Governor of New Jersey.

And forget about old what’s his name.