Janesville Gazette editorial excerpt:
Administrators are thinking like academics when they might convince more voters if they thought like people in the business world, where capital projects are approved only after managers calculate potential returns on investments.
Why not take it a step further? Why only think like businessmen when you can be convincing them about the returns that school improvements will have upon their profits. The Gazette for example suggested “expert” engineers might be able to state that people are more productive when they work in comfortable rooms. So in the future, the Gazette and other local businesses will have an employee pool that has been appropriately schooled in comfortable rooms. How much is that worth to the Gazette’s bottom line?
Convince the Janesville Gazette (Bliss Communications) about the potential returns of say, a $100,000 investment into the school improvements. Convince home grown multi-billionaires like Ken Hendricks and Jim Fitzgerald to give a couple million dollars each to Janesville schools, afterwards they could go to bat for the district to convince others as well. Convince several medium sized businesses to raise $100,000 for the improvements. Convince Rep. Paul Ryan to earmark $5 million in Federal money not to build a bridge to the North Pole, but to invest in the education of our Janesville youth. Convince major corporations like GM, Target and Wal-Mart to invest into the training and education of their future Janesville employees. Those three should be worth at least $5 million.
Give the students and teachers $70.8 million in school improvements convincing others to risk about $10 million, isn’t asking for too much. Afterall, the school board is asking for much more from those who barely make it, day to day. I think if property taxpayers saw a direct investment from those who benefit the most from our publicly funded schools, they would vote a unanimous YES.
11 comments:
Why not just use the money they generate from property taxes and use that money to upgrade the schools as they are needed. Instead of raiding the funds for other expenses. We shouldn't have to go after businesses to invest in the schools. They pay a lot in property taxes already. I don't have a problem using my property taxes for the schools. I do have a problem with the property taxpayers always being the fall guy. If they would take 10% of the property taxes that are generated each year and put that money in an investment account they could generate quite a bit of money to put towards upgrades of schools.
In Janesville, nearly half of my property taxes go to schools. Businesses pay alot in taxes, but they also got a lot of subsidies and other perks from our corporate run politicians.
The whole point here is the mainstream media suggests that school boards should hire professional linguists and marketeers to create ads targeting mostly working class people to convince them to vote tax increases unto themselves. Implying that the people aren't smart enough to make the decision on their own while never to pursue other sources of revenue. No imagination.
If I don't have nor ever will have children why do I have to pay for them to have air conditioning? Why do they need better gym's when that money could be well better used to actually educate these kids. You know, real world education as opposed to sports.
I completely understand your view. But I do want children to learn in a clean, safe and productive driven environment. I have a problem expanding sports in schools because it seems to leave an aggressive and overly competitive imprint on the kids at the expense of academics. Not on all kids, but many nevertheless.
Lou, did you see the bootlicking job the Gazette did on Hendricks today?
"Everybody thinks it's a pile of cash in the closet, but I'd have to sell the company in order to have the cash," Hendricks said.
This tightwad drives a Jeep, no way he would give one penny to Janesville schools.
The sports aspect is a no brainer. You go to these small communities and they have these really nice schools with really nice gyms. Sports and phisical education are a vital part of our society. Keeping fit helps maintain a good healthy lifestyle. It helps with the brain and self estteem which is very helpful in and out of the classroom. The gyms are not only used for sports they are also used for assemblies and graduation ceremonies. All city strings uses the gym as well for a concert each year.
Ken Hendricks worked for his money and has done a lot for Rock County. He pretty much brought back the riverfront in beloit back from the dead.
Yes, I read the article. I also remember an article the Gazette ran over a year ago about Ken Hendricks. He sounded like man with a chip on his shoulder and a score to settle with Janesville. He is all about making money, but that doesn't tell us much. If he truly passes 53% of the profits in addition to regular wages to the employees in the form of bonuses, etc. I’m not going to bash him. To the contrary, I would like to see Hendricks throw a couple million to the Janesville schools, that generosity would say something about him words could not describe.
I thought his quote ”everybody thinks it’s a pile of cash” and that he would have to sell his businesses to get the money is a great line for taxpayers to use.
Just like the school board thinks property tax payers have a pile a cash in the closet. Instead they will have to sell their houses to pay the taxes.
"The sports aspect is a no brainer."
I wish I came up with that one!
Ken Hendricks wealth is in assets. He would have to sell his assests to get the money he is said to be worth.
Why can't the school district live within it's budget? It shouldn't be that difficult. I have to live within my budget.
It's only $110 a year per $100,000 value of a home. It's really not that much money. It's a lot less now than it would be ten years down the road when intrest rates may be higher and the cost of construction will certainly be higher. We might as well bite the bullet now. I hate having to pay higher taxes but, it would make Janesville attractive to people that maybe looking to move into this city.
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