First off, I responded to your cry for AC because I thought it was a silly thing to focus on. This thread is about Utah having a lottery and the pros and cons of that. You seem to be making an argument that Utah needs a lottery so our schools can have AC. Great. I'm not sure a lottery would put ACs in our schools, but if our schools had AC then all the better.
Second, I wish schools were private and privately funded. That doesn't mean I want to see our public schools slowly starved to death by lack of funding. I don't want to point to failed schools as a way to convince people that schools should not be public, I want to convince people that it is not the governments place to do it in the first place, no matter if they run schools really well or really poorly. As long as the schools are public (and I expect them to be for the rest of my life and for as long as my son and his potential children are in school) I want them to be run well and have all the funding they need. The republican approach that seems to focus on keeping taxes low, even at the expense of taking care of current governemnt responsibilities, is not a view I share. Tax rates are what they are because of what the government is expected to do. I'd like to change the expectaitons of what government should be doing first, find private sector solutions second, and change our tax situation last.
I have a child. He is in elementary school. This year he is in a year round school. I asked him yesterday and he believes his school has AC. Last year he had to go to a different school because he was in the ALPS program. That school was not year round. I don't know if it had AC, but my son never complained about it being too hot.
I went to public school in Utah. To see that our average class size now is in the low 20s was a nice surprise. I was in classes of 30-40 students most of the time. I was in schools that did not have AC. I don't remember being uncomfortable in school because it was too hot. Maybe it's just been too long. I don't want kids to suffer, and I'm not sure they are currently suffering due to heat. Maybe I'll find out they are. Regardless, I don't know that a lottery would solve the AC crisis. I didn't look back, but didn't you post that Idaho gets 37 mil/year from the lottery? I don't think that's enough to retrofit our schools with AC if they weren't built for it.
Finally, what I think does not serve you well is assuming you know why I hold the positions I hold, or that I don't have the fortitude or integrity to stand by my opinions when the going gets tough. In my case you would be dead wrong.
To clear a few things up...
1: I am claiming that our schools don't get enough funding. I pointed to not having the money for AC as a good example of this. We could just as easily be talking about the asbestos in the schools, or the fact that most of them are not earthquake safe. These are all things that can only be fixed with money.
2: I understand the tax burden is already high due to the number of kids in Utah. So our dollars are stretched thinner than most other places. Therefore this needed funding must come from alternative sources. I never went too deep into this but I could have pointed out how most (or even all) of the middle and high schools already have cell towers on the property and fast food chains in the cafeteria.
3: I never claimed to know why you have the principles that you hold. I only claimed that if those principles were putting your own kids at risk, you would likely soften on them. I stand by that opinion. I think just about anyone would reconsider almost anything if it was something that caused their children to suffer. If you have a don, then you probably already know this. If you walked into your son's classroom, and it was 85 degrees in there, and you found out it was like that for 20-25% of the school year, it would probably be a lot more important to you.
4: I am not concerned about your beliefs that schools should be private. I disagree with that belief, but it's off topic and I never mentioned it. I'm talking about how a lottery could help fund public schools here.
5: The Idaho lottery paid a $37 million dividend to the state in 2011. They have a smaller population than Utah, and Utah's dividend would likely be even bigger. That would certainly not hurt our already underfunded educational system. In fact, I bet within a few years all the schools could have AC, be earthquake safe, and have the asbestos removed. I'm no HVAC expert, but I'm guessing adding AC to a school would cost somewhere between 10 and 100 grand. Even at 100 grand, that 37 million would allow 370 schools to get AC in the first year.
6: If your son's school didn't have AC, you/he would know. Especially if it was year round. Let your house get to 80 or 85 degrees and you'll notice, for sure. Most of the schools that don't have AC have loud fans blowing papers all over the place, lol. And they don't help that much with the temperature.
