There is considerable buzz currently about where the line resides, if it still does, delineating the boundary beyond which activity in pursuit of political aims is considered distasteful enough to warrant sanction. Given the parameters of the current contentions, the Douglas County School District’s actions in pursuit of a tax increase hardly constitute the most egregious example, but still merit examination.

The district recently produced a series of videos urging the viewer to accept the necessity of parting with more of his or her money for, naturally, improvements of local public schools. The spots utilized first- and second-graders “interviewing” district Middle and High School principals and asking highly precocious questions about this or that needed school improvement. Things like, “I heard some things in this school need to be fixed” and “will all these things be fixed by the time I go here?”

The videos are really quite adorable; the youngsters obviously did an admirable job, and clearly had a hoot – what 5-year-old doesn’t relish the chance to be on TV?! – and just as obviously took great pride in visiting with and evidently pleasing their future principals.

Adorable or not, one cannot help cringing inwardly at least a little at the appropriateness of using 5-and 6-year olds for political ends. There is something indecorous about using children for such purposes, children who are, let’s face it, more or less captive and, at that age, as eager to please their superiors as they are yet incapable of formulating independent opinions over whatever it is they are unwittingly promoting.

I presume parental permission was sought and granted for each instance, which is somewhat mitigating, but in the current environment of eroding parental authority that may not even be a given, which would raise a whole new set of questions.

But back to what we know. So what were these little ones being told to tell us their institutions required? More of their parent’s money of course.

I have written, recently, about the fallacy of local tax increases doing anything to actually further education. Earlier this year, folks in Mesa County discovered, to their dismay, that the millions of dollars they vouchsafed the school district in new tax money last year went predominantly to administration. There is little reason to suspect that Douglas County School District will be appreciably more enlightened in their handling of free money.

But let’s provide the benefit of the doubt, and assume the list proffered by the ably-coached young actors will be the destination of those dollars. What do those projects include? Well, taking the videos at their word, it would appear the intellectual development of our upcoming generations is to be best served by providing automatically-deploying bleachers, green grass, and better-looking front doors.

To be sure, some of the requests are valid – updated plumbing, new desks, upgraded security equipment and so forth. But $250 million additional tax dollars for mainly aesthetic improvements stretches credulity.

Arguably, there exist more pressing educational needs in the public school system than fancy bleachers and glass doors, and most of those needs do not require additional dollars to address.

Student achievement indicators in this country, and the state, have been at best stagnant for years stretching to decades, and consistently fall below other nations. More distressingly, and less empirically measurable, is the erosion of the passion to learn, and the desire to teach, anything much beyond that which is rudimentary and diluted, in a society addicted to intellectually bankrupt television and internet offerings and a sophomorically reductionist pop culture. This can be largely corrected in the schools, but only through a major cultural shift and a return to a thirst for classical learning, a respect for the Great Books, and an appreciation for history, the arts, philosophy, and other fundamentals of Western Civilization; not through additional dollars for bleachers and a lust for more public money.

It appears that it is to this latter end that Douglas County’s new superintendent, Dr. Thomas Tucker, was brought on board. One of his more distinctive qualities seems to be his ability to get ballot measures passed.

This then is the role to which DCSD has reduced itself – the maximization of revenue collection. It is appropriate to remind ourselves that the district had a chance not so long ago to do something meaningful and truly effective in terms of improving education, but gave that up in exchange for simple rent-seeking. Perhaps then it is appropriate for children in these schools to spend more time learning how to ask for money rather than reading books.