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# SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK: Who should be pillar?
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/schoolhouse-rock-who-should-be-pillar/
- Published: 2005-01-22T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T06:02:03.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Education, Malibu, #archive-import

This past week, Q-line asked: Should it be left up to communities throughout California to fund their own school districts, or is it the state’s responsibility?

Here are your responses: ✆ “All I know is that we need to cut the fat. Just check out the parking spaces in front of the Santa Monica-Malibu district headquarters on 16th Street and Olympic — all of the administration staff are driving Jags and BMWs.” ✆ “Affluent communities like Malibu can well afford to support and subsidize their school districts. Such is not the case in all communities. Yes, the state and even the federal government should help out in these instances. We must have better educated children. If Bush can spend $40 million on his inauguration, and finance nine inaugural balls, I should think he could find a few dollars so that — as he has claimed on many occasion — no child will be left behind. No more Bush phoniness and baloney.” ✆ “The question about should the state help local communities in their schools is a good one, actually a very good one. My answer is that it should not, that the local schools could actually get by very well with the few needs they are: One, a simple schoolhouse; two, one principal; three, one secretary; four, dedicated, well-educated teachers commensurate with the number of students; five, textbooks that haven’t been politicized; six, a good full curriculum and for supplies they should have papers, pencils, and a few balls for recess so the kids get exercise, and they should get that exercise. What they do not need is an over-stuffed bureaucracy. They should have reviews every year, there should be state requirements that they know things by the end of the year but they don’t need all the zillions of bureaucrats that are in there now. And in conclusion, some of the most well educated people I’ve ever known have been schooled in one-room schoolhouses, private schools or at home. If they have extra money they can spend it on art and on music, which I think is important. But also, those can be done locally by other means.” ✆ “I remember when our educational system was absolutely the best in the country. We were at the top. And did we need to spend more money then? I don’t believe that the quality of our education is really dependent on more money. The focus needs to return to quality. Something seems to have gone awry here and I would say at this point: Less spending, more quality.” ✆ “It would seem it’s either local idiots running things or state idiots running things. Using the LAUSD as an example, there’s no sense in letting these idiots run things in LA. As far as the state, when the lottery came in they said that it would bring all this money to the schools. So what did they do, they just probably cut all the funding that the lottery brought it, so they’re back there to square one. Now that idiot governor wants to cut even more money — as usual — they should stop wasting money on administrators and use it for the teachers and the classroom. And then they should get rid of all the illegal aliens in the school. They could save money by doing that, so make the federal government pay for it.” ✆ “The school funding problem has to do mainly — or mostly — with the Los Angeles school district due to its size and the business of teaching children of a multi-cultural society and community. As for Santa Monica, I feel that all colleges should be the wards of the state, and the Malibu school district should have severed with Santa Monica years ago. We must keep in mind that school districts are bureaucracies ran by bureaucrats. All bureaucrats love larger departments: The larger the department, the larger the pay. The same old song and dance, more than enough is never enough, due to poor management.” ✆ “No. Emphatically no, with an exclamation mark. In the old days property taxes were used to pay for schools, the police department, the fire department and street lights, etc. No hospitals were paid for with property taxes, in the old days. Private hospitals were bearing that responsibility. But, because of the heavy financial burden of today, with inflation, high salaries, etc. schools should no longer be financed with property taxes, or any part of the property taxes, rather, by the state and its funding apparatus. The state, when it needs assistance, should appeal to the U.S. government, the federal government, for any shortages. And the state should also remember that turning over financial responsibility to the local school districts will be like letting somebody jump into a sea or swamp of alligators. It will be impossible for local communities to finance their own school districts. And there’s a situation where as far as the Deasys of the world are concerned this would eliminate the necessities of the Deasys of the world, trying to milk local citizenry for funds that he says he hasn’t got to run his school district. The John Deasys are an anathema to fiscal responsibility.” ✆ “Education is not the responsibility of the state, local school boards or Hillary’s village. It is the parents responsibility. It’s not up to us, who have elected to remain child free, to subsidize the spawn of biological clock-ticking bimbos and macho men. Subsidizing litters of rug rats leads to more people, more resource depletion, more pollution, more crime, and wars over resources. Don’t breed ‘em if you can’t feed ‘em, or can’t educate them yourself.” ✆ “Yes I think it’s ideal for Santa Monica community to run their own school system.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 22, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/012205.pdf?ref=smdp.com)