Saturday, December 26, 2009

D'yer mak'er

School board member Allen Dyer has his panties in a bunch because Howard County pays approximately $500,000 to bus certain religions private school students to their private schools:

He said the school system is constitutionally barred from providing transportation to a select group of private school students. "If we bus some private school students, we bus them all," he said. "We can't pick and choose which ones we want to bus."


Of course, Dyer wants to cut this funding, not offer transportation to all private school students. While I agree with Dyer in a pedantic sense, this is not an issue that it makes sense to run up the flag pole. The parents who send their children to private schools save the county a whole lot of money every year. These same private school parents are also taxpayers who pay a large amount of taxes each year to support a public school system that they don't even use. These folks are not free riders who are exploiting taxpayers in any sense whatsoever. If anything, parents of public school children owe parents of private school children a HUGE debt of gratitude.

The 2010 operating budget for the school system is $788 MILLION dollars, which is 56% of the total operating budget. If Allen Dyer wants to save taxpayers money, there is ample opportunity in a budget that size. Instead Dyer wants to focus on mind numbing issues like the copyright authority of the school board:

In May, Dyer asked the state board to review the county's policy on royalties. Dyer contended the school board cannot collect royalties because it does not have copyright authority. However, the state board dismissed his appeal on the grounds that it has no jurisdiction over the policy in question.

"A ruling on (federal) copyright laws and their use or applicability to public documents is far beyond the legal purview of this board. Copyright law is not a law enforceable by this board," the state board wrote.

Dyer said in late November that he planned to appeal that policy to the Howard County Circuit Court.


Get real.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just when I thought you couldn't eek a nano-molecule of logic out of that keyboard, you got one right.

Freemarket said...

Thanks?

Eludius said...

Perhaps to save more money Howard County should encourage more children to attend private schools. Sounds counter-intuitive at first, but since you made me think about it, I think this makes sense.

Anonymous said...

It’s a disgrace that he would run for and serve on a Board that he tries to destroy—from the inside. I guess he is trying to prove government doesn’t work by being ineffective!

Anonymous said...

Eludius, that would be vouchers and it would be good for everyone not to mention the kids.