The school district here in my home town has a pretty efficient system for making automated phone calls to parents of students in the district. We get phone calls from my daughter’s school fairly frequently, usually about things like:
- School closure announcements
- Special events at the school
- Report card reminders
- Emergencies and/or high-importance messages
Tonight, we got a recorded message from the superintendent, and the president of the PTSA. The message: please go protest the governor’s proposed budget at juvenile hall this week.
Now I don’t mind getting political phone calls. In fact, I usually enjoy them. Every time there’s a particularly spicy subject on the ballot, the Republican publicity machine cranks up the evening reminders to me to be a good citizen. What I do mind is the use of education dollars (read: tax dollars) to fund political messages like the one we received tonight.
Assuming that I could deal with the misuse of funds, how about this one? You’re using the school district’s parent phone list for political gain. Hmmm…should I add myself to the “do not call” list at the school, now? I don’t recall being asked about political action calls when we agreed that it was important for the school to be able to notify us of important school-related issues. We usually assume that there’s something important going on when the district number shows up on caller ID; but this is like having your oncologist call to solicit donations for the hospital.
Notice that I’m not commenting on the merits of their concern. The truth is, I’m not well-enough versed in the details of the budget to comment one way or another. But even if I did agree that the governor is screwing our schools, I’d still take issue with the superintendent’s decision to abuse his uninhibited access to parents.
How about this, Mr. Superintendent? Go make the phone calls, one by one, to each home in town, and declare yourself as a political action figure. Or better yet: have a car wash, and pass out fliers.
Hell, I don’t even wash my car…but I’d still fork out $10 to have you spray it down, just so I could mock you in a bikini.
Technorati Tags: california, politics, education, school district, ramona, calls
3 responses so far ↓
1 Todd Prouty // Apr 29, 2008 at 6:27 am
Unfortunately this kind of thing has become common practice, and I’m afraid it is likely to get worse. Last year, when I still lived in Chicago, I got a call — on my cell phone — from Mayor Richard M. Daly. Well, his recorded voice anyway. He was asking me to vote for [some candidate] in [some race]. I don’t know how his political machine got my cell phone number (it’s my only phone, so possibly through my driver’s license registration?), but if my phone had a “mark as spam” button, I would have hit it immediately. Then there’s the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority), a highly mismanaged organization that is using its subsidies to advertise for more subsidies. One time I was riding the bus to work when the recorded voice that makes general announcements goes into a long monologue about how we should all be contacting our state representatives to ask for more funding for the CTA. And then it said something like, “If additional funding is not received, this route will be shut down on [pause followed by date inserted later — apparently this is a reusable recording, ready for the next shakedown].” Hard to believe. I was paying taxes for the CTA and I had just paid the fare to ride the bus, but they think it’s okay to spend the money to have professional voice talent record a political ad and play it back to their captive passenger audience when they’re supposedly on the verge of financial ruin. What a joke. Oh, and don’t get me started on their website, http://savechicagotransit.com/. As a web designer, I know what sites like this can cost. But look at that page (before the redirect). The fact that one campaign (with its own website) ends, only to spawn another one (with its own website) says a lot about the way politics and funding work in the US today.
Btw, came in via Twitter.
2 Turnip // Apr 29, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Todd,
That’s hysterical. The bounce you threw in there had me in stitches – especially the note at the bottom of the landing zone: “Chicagoland transit has new operating funds to keep buses running and fares down.” …but here’s a site we built to bitch about some similar, but separate stuff.
What’s even funnier is that out here in California, the CTA is the California Teachers’ Association (http://cta.org)…and their site could be an even swap for the transit authority; just change kids to buses, and you’re good to go.
3 Todd Prouty // Apr 30, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Oh yeah, education is even worse. I don’t have kids (yet), but in Minnesota (where I’m from originally) and I’m sure Chicago, too, the schools use kids to lobby their parents. Fliers are sent home threatening school lunches, bus routes, etc. It’s a pretty popular ploy to cut the bus routes… they know Mom & Dad aren’t going to be too pleased about driving their kids to school every day. Disgusting, if you ask me. Especially in schools where the state-of-the-art computer labs I had in high school were better than what I had in college years later, not to mention the astronomical salaries for administrators. Can you tell this stuff bothers me?
I preserved that “Save Chicago Transit” page for posterity. I shouldn’t start, but how ridiculous is that name, anyway? As though the buses and trains would suddenly go away. Alarmist politics at their best.
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