So why am I voting for it, and urging you to do the same?

Because I participated in the process, play by the rules, respect the consensus of our district’s stakeholders and admire the politically creative and sensitive job the current board members did creating this package.

I would have liked more in the way of cluster school campuses, and high schools limited to 600 students. There are other omitted ideas many school districts view as successful “best practices.”

But those ideas were out there. Some came from board members, some from the committee, and some from other stakeholders. They were given more than fair consideration.

Many ultimately were rejected by teachers, parents or other stakeholders. That’s their right. We like our “neighborhood schools.” And we’re darn sure committed to our City and West High Schools -- and the crucial need for an alternative high school building.

The board has to balance progressive national practices against popular local preferences. Democracy means building compromise. And the board has done a great job of stakeholder involvement in creating it.

We have slow but steady growth in enrollments, yes. But the pressing reason we need expansion is the shortage of classrooms, not the excess of students. Classrooms for half-day, now all-day, kindergarten. Additional classrooms for the smaller class sizes in kindergarten through third grade. Classrooms for legally mandated special education. Special purpose rooms for music and other programs.

Some wanted a sales tax, not a bond. The board heard from them. It chose the bond route -- for a long list of persuasive reasons and realities. Not the least of those realities is that when our communities considered library and other funding with a sales tax in 1999 the proposal was voted down by whopping margins in every single precinct!

Thus, the reality is that anyone proposing sales tax funding at this 11th hour really is saying “No to Kids.”

Take a look at the Web page (www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/dorr1.html) of Paul Dorr, the consultant the school bond opponents wanted to hire. Two months ago he wrote “Why I Defeat Government School Bond Levies At the Ballot Box and Do It For a Profit.”

Here are some excerpts:

“The statist bureaucrats in education are on a mission to destroy liberty in this nation, by destroying the founding Christian faith that made it possible and replacing it with their humanist group think ‘New Jerusalem.’ They’ve masked their freedom-destroying, anti-intellectual efforts under the ruse of ‘educational neutrality.’ Let us offend them in any way that we can. Go on the offense against their funding proposals that need the consent of the local electorate.”

Even if you agree with him, there was a time to make the sales tax and anti-public education arguments. Some even complained there was too much time. But whatever time you and I had, that time has passed. Further debate at this point has to be seen for what it is: deliberate sabotage of our school district’s needs.

The school board has put before us the best package the stakeholders of this school district could create. Show the board you appreciate their hours of volunteer effort. Vote “Yes for Kids” February 11th -- or earlier by absentee.
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Nicholas Johnson is a former Press-Citizen K-12 education columnist and school board member (1998-2001) who teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law. He can be reached via www.nicholasjohnson.org.