Like Proposal 4, this year's Proposal 5 is a crowd pleaser. I expect it will pass handily. Like Proposal 4, however, it will be passing without my support. My objection to this proposal is exactly opposite that I have to 4; Proposal 5 is entirely too small for the problem it means to address.

"But Murph," you say, "How can a proposal that requires half a billion in additional State funding to K-16 education immediately, and annual increases of at least inflation, to be 'small'? This is huge!"

Not for the problem it's addressing.

Michigan's schools and Universities are suffering for lack of funding. But so are its cities, villages, and townships. So are its transportation systems. So are health care programs, and parks, and economic development, and everything else that the State does. The schools' budget problems are but one symptom of the general meltdown imposed by decades of conservatism and pillaging of the social contract, and this proposal is a feel-good band-aid solution. Nobody will vote against schools, so the schools will get their money, but the larger problem will continue.

Now, the best voice I've heard so far in support of Prop. 5 - well above the standard, "we have to support schools!", is Ypsilanti School Board member Cameron Getto, who recognizes that the problem is one of a statewide structural budget deficit that "has nothing to do with overspending or irresponsible spending at the local level". Getto says, "It is this structural deficit that requires a solution."

I agree. But the structural budget deficit goes far beyond just the schools. Getto identifies the school systems' health care costs as part of the problem - yes, we need a national health care system. The same with retirement costs - we need to provide for our grandparents. He identifies energy costs as part of the problem - yes, we need to prioritize energy efficiency and acknowledge ecological reality, and not just for mere questions of cost. There is no problem that the schools face that is isolated to the schools - all of these are symptomatic of larger issues, at both the State and national levels.

At all levels, we need to fight the decades-old mantra of cut-taxes-cut-spending-cut-taxes-more, and the schools are an important weapon in this fight. We must resist the urge to patch over the schools' budget problems, to mandate funding without examining the larger issues involved and thereby pit our schools against everything else that is important to us. This is an exellent example of the divide-and-conquer tactics that Norquistian conservatism uses to maintain the race to the bottom.

All the problems that Proposal 5's supporters cite are real. We need to fix them. Proposal 5 is a superficial band-aid cure, and will only serve to sabotage system-wide well-being. Schools are the canary in the social coal mine, and offering the canary an aspirin won't improve the air.