....Freedom to Learn Network....




"All wish to know, but none want to pay the fee."
....JUVENAL





Why Senior Citizens Should Support Public Education
Rev. Roger E. Buchanan


Rev. Buchanan is a Board Member of the Freedom to Learn Neetwork and is pastor of Lansdale Schwenkfelder Church. He is also a member of the Community Advisory Councel of the North Penn Reporter, in which this editorial originally appeared (in May 1998).





This week a salesperson came over to "get a couple of signatures." When it was all said and done, my wife and I anticipate that we will soon own long term health care insurance. This seems like a good idea. After all, none of us know what the future holds.

It is hard to plan for tomorrow, particularly when earning capacity and income is limited. When the paychecks stop, vulnerability sets in like never before. There is no magic wand that guarantees that all of our needs will be met.

In this climate of uncertainty, permit me to put in a word for children and for education. As public school budgets hit the headlines, the usual editorial comment and "Letters to the Editor" will focus on the burden senior citizens face. Popular opinion holds to the doctrine that those greedy teachers and fat school budgets are forcing seniors to give up their homes. But, this is one senior citizen who holds a different point of view.

When we seniors plan for the future there are certain obvious considerations, like long term health insurance. Just as obvious is inflation. A good shot of inflation can be a fatal blow to the pocketbook for a fixed-income adult. I have seen it happen all too often. Not so obvious are two additional forces ready to pull the rug out from under a comfortable retirement. One is health care and the other is education.

Consider health care cost. Most of us can remember when sound advice was to take two aspirin and call the doctor in the morning. Now sound advice is to go to the hospital in the morning and have open-heart surgery in the afternoon. The long and short of it is simple. Apart from inflation, medical technology is pushing up the cost of sound advice. Somebody has to pay the bill.

Did you ever hear of a senior citizen who had to give up their home to pay for a new heart? Hardly. We seniors have Medicare and other supplements of various descriptions, not available to the young. Consequently a person who could never accumulate two nickels to rub together can now walk down the street with a new ticker and perhaps some other replacement parts.

Who is paying for all of this health care, and who is pumpping money into the Social Security System? The answer of course is the next generation. Very often two parents in every household are working to pay the taxes and keep the whole system afloat. Meanwhile, the children of taxpayers spend their days in a tax-supported public school.

So I say to seniors, "Don't beat up the grandchildren. Don't punish the next generation of wage earners by pulling the rug out from under the school system. Plan for it and expect it. School costs will go up faster than inflation. Just as two replacement organs cost more than two aspirin, so too, computers cost more than the tyewriters they replace."

If we seniors can enjoy the good stuff that goes with advanced technology, while some other generation pays the bill, then "Do unto others as they have already done unto us." Protect children, support public educaiton. After all, while we may not know what the future holds, we may still be around when today's students are old enough to hold a pay stub up to the light and begin to ask the same questions about us that we are asking about them.





*Reproduced with permission of the Freedom to Learn Network,
2020 Downyflake Lane, Suite 301A, Allentown, PA 18103*




[Home] [nea/psea] [info index] [publications] [psea affiliates] [kids' stuff] [college info]
[media] [resources] [gov't e-mail]
[chapter 4] [preserve public ed] [community relations] [humor]
[stress management] [ADD/ADHD] [safe schools] [new teacher info] © 2001,2002,2003 All rights reserved


Send Your Comments

---

This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page