A Scrooge at the Legislature

I was halfway through last night on my column for today’ edition but was prompted to abandon it after checking the Saipan Tribune’s website, which showed last Thursday’s stories that included one headlined “Too much funding for PSS?” According to the story, some lawmakers are not convinced that the Public School System should get its entire proposed funding of $50 million for fiscal year 2006, saying that it is getting substantial federal grants every year anyway. At the same time, they argued that PSS is set to receive a total of $20 million in Compact Impact funds over four years or $5.1 million every year beginning this year, as promised by Gov. Juan N. Babauta.

Methinks the lawmakers should not begrudge PSS its substantial budget. In the first place, the number of students in the CNMI has been growing exponentially yet PSS’ budget has remained substantially the same since 1999 at about $37 million. This has resulted in a reduction in per capita spending for every child enrolled in public schools. If you will recall, back in 1992 the Legislature appropriated $30.92 million for the 7,086 students enrolled in public schools, which constituted $4,264 per child; when multiplied over the projected fiscal year 2006 enrollment of 11,726 students, this would equal $50 million, which is what PSS is asking for.

Secondly, as my economics professor used to tell us, loans taken out to further one’s education are not considered liabilities but investments. In this case, the substantial funding going PSS’ way should be looked at as investments in the children—and consequently the future—of the CNMI. Lawmakers are always complaining about the islands’ too much reliance on nonresident workers and local residents being bypassed for promotions in favor on nonresidents. Well, investing in the education of the CNMI’s children and providing them the means to achieve a good education is one way to ensure that the CNMI won’t always be reliant on nonresident workers. It’s not policies that are lopsided in favor of resident workers that will fuel the future growth of the CNMI, nor the election staple of trotting out barefaced xenophobic rantings to whip up the masses that will ensure 100 percent employment for local residents. Rather, it is a highly educated population, with the finely honed skills needed for a globalized workplace that will ensure jobs for everyone, with salaries commensurate to their worth as workers. At the same time, by providing the means for the CNMI’s children to obtain a good education, the government can ensure that these islands will have a ready pool of finely educated and amply trained workers who can fill any slots that future investors will be bringing to the islands, cutting down on the need to fish for such kind of workers outside the Commonwealth.

Instead of being miserly with the PSS budget, lawmakers would be better off demanding for accountability and transparency in how education officials are spending the money being given them. The federal government has already set in place such accountability standards, so it is up to the local government to set up its own system in a way that will put in black and white the expenditure patterns of the Public School System. At the same time, such accountability standards should be made fully transparent, with not just lawmakers being given access to such data but also the media and the general public, so that education officials are made aware that they are being watched and their spending being scrutinized.

Then, of course, accountability must include HOW the money is being spent. Throwing vast sums of money at education or investing in superficial and flashy gimmickries will not automatically result in prodigies. I mean, consider the governor’s laptop initiative. C’mon, give me a break. What was Gov. Juan N. Babauta thinking? Furnishing one class expensive laptops accomplished nothing more than teaching a select few extra ways of accessing porn on the web. Such a ploy would never result in better education standards or improved academic performance. Worse, it only fostered envy and resentment among the not-so-fortunate students who have to elbow one another just to get access to the single desktop computer inside their classrooms. What kind of lesson is that and what value was conveyed to our students? That serendipity, rather than sheer hard work, would land you places? Instead of buying those expensive laptops, which cost more than a thousand bucks each, the governor would have accomplished more by buying desktop computers for three units a grand and distributing them equitably across all public schools on the islands.

No, good education can be had only through the old-fashioned way: Grounding the children on the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, giving them competent and inspired teachers, providing teachers enough funding so they don’t have to resort to out-of-pocket expenses for instructional materials, and providing schools an environment that is conducive to learning. By giving PSS the funding it needs, education officials will have no excuse whatsoever to fail in their mandate of providing the children the tools they will need when they venture into the world outside of academia. If PSS does fail in this, then that’s the time for lawmakers to demand an accounting.