A New Voice for Our Children

Thank you for visiting my website. Every word you read here is my own and I'll be happy to talk to you or your group about the challenges facing our public schools today.

I'm Randy Smith and like many of you, I have lost faith in the management of the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated Schools Corporation. Rather than complain about it, though, I'm offering my name on the ballot for school board this November, seeking an at-large seat for the next four years.

I earnestly ask for your vote this fall. Early voting begins on Oct. 12 and Election Day is Nov. 8.

Over the course of the next two months, I'll be speaking here about the challenges our public schools face. Leave a comment. I'll be happy to make this a two-way conversation.

Where's the Clamor for School Funding?

Over the past decade, the formulas for school funding in Indiana have changed dramatically. Some would argue that this a a good thing, but most local school boards (and their constituencies) have not adapted to the new reality.

Former Gov. Mitch Daniels was straightforward in saying that if local jurisdictions wanted top-notch schools, they would have to pay for it themselves.

This recent report from FiveThirtyEight.com explains how school funding has suffered.

In May 2008, as the Great Recession was just beginning, U.S. school departments employed 8.4 million teachers and other workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This past May, they employed just 8.2 million — despite public-school enrollments that the Department of Education estimated have risen by more than 1 million students during the same period.

This is a year in which Floyd County voters are being asked to borrow $87 million for new school buildings. The cost to do this equals more than 20 cents per $100 in adjusted property tax valuation.

I have to ask - when this referendum is rejected by the voters, will its supporters join to ask voters to pay that much toward instruction for our children?

That is the real question - not whether we love our children and support our schools, but whether we should be increasing local school funding instead of building new buildings.

Lack of Transparency Sinks Referendum

Unlike most, if not all of the candidates for the At-Large School Board seat in Floyd County, I have not been persuaded that the November referendum to raise $87 million dollars for capital improvements is the wisest choice for voters.

I'm running for school board explicitly to give voice to the multitudes in Floyd County who love our children and want the best for them when it comes to schooling. Many thousands of those people, however, aren't persuaded that this plan is the best or the only way to provide that.

The slogan of "We  [Heart] Our Schools" implies that anyone who opposes THIS referendum is against our schools. But the NA-FC administration has not made the case for this bond issue.

More importantly, the administration has given voters reason to distrust their priorities and their decision-making.

In my neighborhood, we watched as a fine school was closed (and then sold to a Louisville church). The closure was justified, in part, by saying that the city of New Albany didn't have enough children to fill the schools. The organization "Save Silver Street School" provided accurate demographic information to the opposite effect, but still the school was closed and disposed of.

Now that those statistics have proved to be the right ones, we are being told that we'll need more (and newer) space for the expected influx of new children.

The truth matters, and I believe the WHOLE truth needs to be discussed before we take on decades of debt payments.

There is a reason to build palaces, but the administration won't admit those reasons. If they had done so, if they paid attention to facts instead of dreams, I might have been convinced to support this debt referendum. But in the current case, I can't trust what they tell us.

That, among other reasons, is why I am offering my name as a candidate for the school board in the at-large seat. Those of us who oppose taking on $87 million in new debt and handing it over to this administration deserve a candidate who remembers that the Superintendent works for the School Board and not the other way around.

I do not question the good will of the many who are voting Yes to this new debt. I will not disparage other candidates for the school board who are urging you to take on $87 million in new debt. But I do offer you, the voters, a choice in the at-large school board race. I will be voting No on this referendum. And yes, those of us who do so love our schools and our children just as much as the PAC and the board members urging you to take on all this debt every year for the next few decades.