Who Will Pay for Mass. Governor’s School Package?

by Joe Auciello / November 2007 issue of Socialist Action newspaper

BOSTON—Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) recently announced a new series of social reforms that, if implemented, would expand educational and job opportunities for minorities and the poor. The fatal flaw, though, is that the governor has given no indication of how he would fund his plan, which he projects for 2015.

Current estimates indicate that the price tag for this education reform would be $1 billion. How will this money be raised? Other than saddling working families with additional taxes, the legislature would have to close corporate tax loopholes and create progressive taxation that would raise the rates on the rich.

Neither the State House nor the House of Representatives has the will for the fight it would take to change the system and make substantive education improvement possible. In other words, the Democratic governor has no hope of seeing his reforms approved by a Democratic-controlled state legislature.

If it were enacted, though, the governor’s comprehensive “cradle to career” proposal would create a universal pre-kindergarten program and would enable all of the state’s high school graduates to attend community college for free. A community college, two-year degree is a requirement for an estimated 20,000 unfilled jobs in Massachusetts.

The governor’s package also includes a longer school day and year, tougher curricular standards in math and English, and new teacher-training programs.

These proposals, in today’s national political climate, have larger implications. Education reform, along with health care, have long ranked highest in public concern, according to national polls. A successful program anywhere in the country would stir interest in other states.

The highlight of Gov. Patrick’s proposals—state-funded community college for all high school graduates—is certainly needed. Tuition and fees at Massachusetts’ community colleges are among the highest in the nation. The state’s average for two-year college costs is $3477; the national average is $2272. Massachusetts ranks among the lowest of the 50 states in contributions for college education.

Erasing tuition costs would make a college education possible for students who, up to now, have been shut out from higher education. The guaranteed opportunity to attend community college would also likely reduce the high school drop-out rate, highest among Black and Hispanic youth, since the next rung on the educational ladder would finally be—at least for some—within reach.

The governor’s proposal also extends to the children of undocumented immigrants, who currently must pay out-of-state tuition rates (twice the cost of in-state rates), even if the students have lived in Massachusetts for most or all of their lives. This would be a clear benefit to families who are vital to the Massachusetts economy and whose numbers have prevented an overall population loss in the state.

It’s no surprise, then, that education officials and teachers’ unions here favor the governor’s proposals. Massachusetts Teachers Association President Anne Wass praised Gov. Patrick for his “inspiring vision for public schools and colleges.” Heads of community colleges have all joined the chorus of applause.

Implicit in the governor’s agenda is an idea that should be proclaimed explicitly: All children and youth have a fundamental right to an education. One role of government is to ensure and expand this right.

In 21st-century America, the right to an education is no longer satisfied by a high-school diploma. Current and future requirements of the economy and jobs demand better-educated workers. Without such an opportunity, the least well off will fall further behind.

Consequently, the proposal to attend free, two-year community colleges is a necessary step toward the foreseeable future.

But such a step, however important, is not yet sufficient. The cost of a college education includes much more than tuition fees. The poorest part of the population, those with the greatest need, bear the greatest burden in meeting the additional costs of housing, health care, transportation, and food. Living expenses for a student far outweigh the tuition expenses. Unless a reform program addresses the totality of students’ financial requirements, the potential benefits of reform will be severely limited.

At present, the likelihood of substantive, increased possibility for higher education is poor to none. Gov. Patrick’s proposal testifies, in reality, to the impotence of a progressive agenda within the confines of a regressive capitalism. The failure of his ideas will point to the failure of an entire political and economic system.

Today, money is available for war because war ensures a world safe for investment and profit. Large ideas in education cannot be adequately funded. Economic growth is not significant and sustained enough, as it was in the post-World War II years, to dispense some large crumbs to the working class and the poor.

In the late 1960s, President Johnson’s professed goal of “guns and butter ”—military funding for the Vietnam War and domestic funding for anti-poverty programs—could not be sustained for long. Military need quickly trumped humanitarian need. Today little has changed.

A radical realignment of social priorities is necessary, one that would make higher education free and available for all qualified students, including programs that would benefit students who are not yet sufficiently qualified.

As socialists explained more than three decades ago: “Any rational and humane social system would spare no expense to provide its young generation with the education and training we need to fully develop our skills and talents and use them in a rewarding manner. Free university education or vocational training would be available to anyone who wanted it. Students would be guaranteed decent housing and an annual salary adequate to our needs. Parents would not have to put their children to work in order to lead a decent life” (“Education is Our Right!” Pathfinder Press, New York: 1976).

An overhaul of the education system in the interests of working-class youth, children of undocumented workers, and minorities will not come into being because of the good wishes of liberal Democrats. Social progress will be achieved, as it always is, when those who are left out and left behind join together in struggle for what is rightfully theirs, placing human needs before private profits.