Backing the Right Horse

I know I gave Superintendent of Public Instruction Karen Garza a hard time recently over the flak of the first snow days of the winter past but she has been doing a good job and there were no other fiascoes after that first snowy day.

Now she has another battle on her hands: the Fairfax County School Board has voted themselves massive pay raises (that is, if you conside 33% increases “massive”) while announcing there is a budget shortfall this year and the education services are going to have to be reduced. And, no, the teachers will get no more than a 0.6% pay raise to make up for the lack of COLAs for the past seven years.

Though the school board would probably like to have kept all this on the low-down, Superintendent Garza has gone very public with her feelings of betrayal by the elected body. And I’m sure it is touching a sensitive nerve throughout the county.

Several teacher friends of my wife have already announced their retirement from the county and moving to another county with better pay. Yes, we are losing a lot of the really good teachers. It does not bode well.

Then there is a new Facebook page started up to pass out information to the voters in the county about the very real need to have the current school board members voted out of office come November and put in some more service-oriented folk.

What I am wondering – and this is an idea that has been gathering dust in my closet since I first mentioned it a dozen years ago – is that there might be another source of support funding for the school system. Since the duly-elected government officials seem to be falling down so hard on the job, let’s turn this over to the corporate sector.

Just like Dan Snyder sold the naming rights for the Redskin’s Jack Kent Cook Stadium (now called “Fedex Field”) why not offer the same sort of coverage to corporate sponsors of public education?

The fees for naming High Schools would be more than Elementary Schools, of course, and the names could be combined.

Lanier Wells Fargo Middle School. Southfield Exxon-Mobil High. Don’t those names simply sing?

And Exxon-Mobil has enough money that they could name more than one high school in the county!

I am certain there are enough corporations with large enough marketing funds to assist the county’s shortfall. And each of the company’s could also have special projects funded in the schools as well. Not just for helping groom future employees but for assisting in grooming the future working force of America.

I know that Google and Lockheed Martin are already partnered in many ways with some of the local schools in different support roles so why not a more direct funding option as well?

It could be a win-win for everyone.

Although I do not know how much control over the curriculum the sponsors should be allowed. If any.

(Hmm, I wonder if Woodson Martian Publishing High has the proper ring to it?)