Wednesday, November 9, 2016

No on 2: not the story you were told

I want to talk a little about this tweet from Bruce Baker today (and the ensuing exchange)
You'll recall that this was the ongoing story told in the national (and sometimes local) press: that this was going to be suburban moms deciding on those poor, urban children of color.
Here's how that worked out:


 Now we could talk about where the suburbs and the cities are, but the point here is: it didn't matter. Question 2 lost EVERYWHERE! It lost in all of the cities: Boston (61%), Worcester (61%), Springfield (58%), and on down through. It lost in the rural areas. And it lost in the suburbs.
With a few exceptions:


Some of our wealthiest communities.

Now I suspect it's going to be tempting for some to say that wealthy people saw a way to make money on this, but I don't think that the whole town of Weston went in together on some sort of an investment opportunity. I do, though, want to call your attention back to something Professor Cunningham said at lunch on Friday: the "very wealthy do care about education, but they do not care to spend for it, as that would mean taxes."

And that was my point (thank you for reading) Monday night: Either we support everyone's education--which yes, we pay for with taxes--or we don't. But if we don't, we don't actually support democracy.

And democracy is going to need us.

Thank you for voting no on question 2.

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