Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Where's the &%@$# Lottery money?

First of all, here's the link for the official explanation of how California Lottery money is disbursed to schools.

Everyone who isn't in a coma or otherwise impaired hears the annual cry of "Not enough money for schools" come election season - whether it's national, state, or local elections, there's a din comparable to a concert by The Who from the usual crowd - to listen to them, you'd be forgiven for thinking that schools are woefully underfunded (again), and that unless we approve the latest round of increases, your children's teachers will be replaced by rocks, and everyone will have to use feather quills and stone tablets for their writing assignments.

It's a clever scheme, using dire threats to scare voters into pulling the lever for either education spending increases, or against any attempt to rein in such spending - and it tends to work.

But to take perhaps the most glaring national example, California, is to beach a whale of a whopper, especially in light of the cash extravaganza for "Education" that the California lottery was supposed to provide.

Currently, the state lottery runs television advertising in prime-time slots, at no doubt extraordinary expense, to inspire more purchases of lottery tickets. One has to marvel at the logic trail: products and services tend to be advertised in primo times and locations precisely because they are profitable, and are looking to expand their customer base. The California lottery certainly doles out some impressive jackpots, but such prizes are clearly not bankrupting the enterprise; if the lottery were at all unprofitable, it would be gone in a flash, and you'd see no prime-time t.v. ads.

At the time the lottery was introduced, we were given tales of riches beyond man's wildest dreams being generated for schools - and yet, here we are years later, and are the exhortations to increase funding for schools any less in din and volume? Every year, we are fed horror stories of how schools are teetering on the brink of collapse, with no hope except for the hapless voter to approve yet another tax increase - or a new tax, take your pick.

California's teachers continue to earn well above the national average, but somehow, it's not only insufficient, it's nowhere near enough, if you listen to the scare mongers - what is it that they are trying to protect?

This dance, played out year after year, ignores the entire concept of economies of scale - that is, structures that expand or contract in proportion to their base. Are we really to believe that back when California education was the best in the nation, that it was so only because there weren't as many students in the system? If that were true, it would be impossible to expand the population; the schools would collapse under their own weight, or citizens would be taxed at 100% - so it cannot be true that "Rising costs" are anything other than an expansion of the bureaucracy that feeds off those doing the actual work in the schools.

If the doomsters speak the truth, then the California lottery hasn't done its job helping education, and should be ended. If, on the other hand, it was merely folded into the ever-expanding appetite of the bureaucracy - the much more likely development - then Californians deserve an honest accounting of where that lottery money has gone.

It's got to be one or the other. It's sickening to be talked down to by the p.r. machine of the schools every single election season, so let's ask them directly: what happened to the windfall for schools that the lottery was supposed to provide?

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