Good teachers generally make bad politicians. It's not that we have any better morals than most politicians (as much as we'd like to think so) - it's that we have no tolerance for inconsistency. So we would frequently lecture, rather than listen, to voters. The conflict between our state-mandated spending cap (601) and our desire to have educational systems competitive with other states (I make less than my colleagues do in Mississippi) is one of the inconsistencies that would provoke such lecturing: here it is.

As has been pointed out, voters want more government services and want to pay less for them. We wanted to limit spending so we passed proposition 601 and have empowered a minority of anti-government zealots in the House to hold the (state's) budget hostage. So now that they lack the votes to pass the Contract on America directly, the House Republicans will reduce government over time by allowing us to spend less and less each year.

Yet we want our roads fixed, rapid transit built, salmon saved and good schools. We also want lower taxes. Well, we can't have it both ways. We can't pay teachers what they deserve, have smaller class size or do much at all to improve student learning without paying more.

There is no free lunch, folks, not even courtesy of state employees. If you want skilled people to work for you, you have to pay them competitive wages. If you want your public servants to be effective, you have to provide us with adequate resources. It is not currently happening. There is no fat in our community college budgets to cut. We are at the bone, folks. We have been for the past decade.

We are able to continue to offer services at the same rate because we pay our community college teachers unequally. Part-time teachers can work at enough colleges to be in effect full-time state employees and receive no benefits whatsoever. This is not fair.

K-12 teachers are rightly pointing out how far behind the inflation rate they've fallen over the past six years. Community college teachers have fared worse. This during a period of low inflation and a booming state economy. We have the money to spend on fair, competitive wages now; for teachers from K-16. The question is, do we have the will to make our legislators spend it?

So, we either force our legislators to spend as much as they legally can on our public goods, or we will find ourselves less and less able to pay for the bills as they come in. And come they will: we either pay for schooling now or for prisons and welfare later. Either way, unless your legislators spend the money they've got available now, it won't be there to spend in the future. The choices are ours, but remember: they are either/or, NOT both/and.

Lecture over.

-Rick Olguin, instructor

North Seattle Community College