Beltway Viewpoint Usually Self-Serving

If someone wanted to spend some money to improve the public elementary school down the street from your house, who has the best idea how that money should be spent? A federal employee based in Washington, D.C.? Of course not.

Those who know best are the ones who know the school best - the teachers who work there. The principal who oversees the staff, the building and the kids. The parents who volunteer in the classroom and send their children there. The school board, whose members represent the community, interact constantly with local administrators and prioritize needs at all city schools so resources are distributed fairly. The answer seems obvious, doesn’t it?

The answer isn’t obvious at all, however, in Washington, D.C. There, some of the politicians and administrators who pose as friends of education feel they know best. Most have never set foot in that elementary school down the street from your house. But they know what it needs, all right: It needs more teachers.

New textbooks? Computer training? A bigger library? Neighborhood outreach programs? Tutors? Audio-visual equipment? Counselors for troubled kids? A better reading curriculum? Never mind all that. And never mind whether there is a vacant classroom to house an additional teacher.

It is good politics, of course, to say schools need more teachers and smaller class sizes. Teacher unions are a powerful interest group and they want more members.

One politician, however, has begun to disagree. And he’s winning the argument. Certainly, he is winning the argument among local educators. In addition, he is beginning to win arguments in Washington, D.C.

This politician is Slade Gorton. The Republican senator from Washington state has spent a lot of time lately listening to local educators vent their frustration with federal programs, which provide only 7 percent of school funding but account for 50 percent of school regulations.

Last week, the Senate voted 53-45 for Gorton’s amendment allowing local schools to decide how to spend money that some politicians say must go only to additional teachers. Schools that do want teachers still can use the aid to hire them. Schools that consider other needs more compelling can fund them, instead.

This is only a start. Gorton proposes a “Straight A’s Act” to expand local discretion in spending other federal appropriations to the schools. Federal politicians from the we-know-best school of thought abhor Gorton’s proposal. Local educators, from one end of Washington state to the other, find Gorton’s approach appealing - after all, they know what each school actually needs.