You Get What You Pay For

Well, The Common Man is in Minnesota now, watching The Uncommon Wife eat breakfast and The Boy play on the ground with Grandma. Despite the inability of the Minnesota Twins to actually hit a baseball, the trip has been incredibly relaxing thus far. It's nice to get away from the political pressure cooker that is State College.

You see, in their infinite wisdom, over the past year the State College School Board has proposed and begun the process of rebuilding State College Area High School, turning it into an architectural and technological wonderland. The proposed bill for the reconstruction effort was in excess of $100 million, and was initially approved with little input from the community at large.

Understandably, members of the State College community were concerned about a $100 million construction project in their town that they would be on the hook for. After several contentious and marathon-length school board meetings (more than 200 community members spoke at one meeting), the board decided to continue with its plans. In response, a large coalition of community members banded together to back a new slate of candidates for the board, resulting in a relatively massive media campaign that included major radio air time.

Anyway, to make a long story short (and overly simple), the school board was voted out on Tuesday, but will remain in office until December. The bids that have been submitted for their construction project total $17 million more than the board has budgeted. The current board (the one that got voted out) still can continue down this path, can revise their proposal, or can table the matter until the fall. Meanwhile, there is not a viable plan in place to replace the outdated and inadequate high school that exists right now. Pipe dreams of magical classrooms and cynical politics of not wanting to pay up for school construction have gotten in the way of meaningful school reform for students again, and the refusal of the two sides to come to any kind of consensus means that State College's high school students will still be working in crumbling schools for years to come. Given the relative wealth and educational background of the State College community at large, this is unacceptable.