School House Rocks – Pt 1

As my colleague Matt Batzel has commented, with the most historic election in a generation behind us, the electoral heavy lifting has only just begun. Tea Party folks took to the streets and then to the polls to rightly protest our egregious out-of-control government in Washington. But that fervor needn’t end with Washington.

As American Majority has reported in activist training events across the country, nearly 50% of all government spending occurs at the state and local level. But whereas much of state spending comes under a degree of voter purview, local magistrates from school boards to city councils to county commissioners spend with near-impunity. And in the case of most school districts, when the occasion raises the ire of local voters, an act of God is necessary to change things…that is, until now.

In nearly every state, school board and city council seats will be up for election in the coming months (stay tuned for a chart on those dates). And with 2012 still a marathon away, it behooves us as Tea Partiers to take notice and apply that fervor in our back yards. So much so that headlines ought to read in the near future “Tea Party Turns Local”.

Here’s food for thought. In Oklahoma, there are 527 superintendents drawing exorbitant salaries, oftentimes in the six-figures. And then there are assistant supers, directors, principals, assistant principals, counselors, secretaries…oh, and then teachers. Yet the progressive education establishment is crying for hundreds of millions more in taxpayers dollars, naturally “for the children.”

It’s gotten so bad, even the mainstream media is crying foul. Question is, how are the bureaucrats blowing money in your state?