Parents would have to volunteer at schools, under proposed legislation

A bill introduced in the Ohio legislature would require parents to donate at least 13 hours of time to their school district each year or pay the price. And, if parents failed to pay up, the fine could be deducted from their state income tax refunds.

School districts would report parents who didn’t volunteer to the Ohio Department of Education.

I’d like to say I have no words for something this stupid, but anyone who knows me knows I’m rarely without an opinion, even for this.

I can’t imagine the kind of moron who takes the statistics that support the idea that involved parents’ children do better in schools and extrapolates it to an idea forcing parents to be involved… with everyone else’s kids.  At best, one could make the argument that parents, by procreating, are tacitly agreeing to be involved with their own children.  But making a parent volunteer for all the other children, rather than letting a parent choose the manner and time in which they, you know, get involved with their child’s education?  That’s fucked.

And then you’d likely get someone like me who can do the math.  Let’s see… paying $100 to get out of 13 hours forced labor with a bunch of other kids towards whom I have no obligations?  Well, I make more than 4 times the equivalent hourly wage ($7.69 an hour), so I can’t say I’d suffer too much heartburn or guilt paying the fine each year and actually working those hours at a job that pays me more than $400 for 13 hours of my time, meanwhile spending time with my own children when and how I see fit.  I’d make sure my kids understood exactly why I made that choice, too.  Helping them to understand the value, both monetary and otherwise, of their time can’t be overestimated.

The idiots in charge could, I suppose, increase the fine to an amount that would remove the incentive to pay it and move on, but then they’d be overwhelmed with cries that this was unfair to poor families who can’t provide either money OR time because they’re busy working multiple minimum wage jobs to survive, and are less likely to have employers who’ll let them leave early for volunteer work.  (Actually, it’s likely that argument will come around anyway, if anyone starts taking this bill seriously.)

Come to think of it, if I was a teacher, I wouldn’t want my classroom flooded with “volunteers” who have no motivation other than escaping a $100 fine.  It’s no stretch to imagine some or even most wouldn’t be terribly motivated to actually do any good during those 13 hours, and many of them would ultimately have to be rubber-roomed so they could put in their 13 hours while simultaneously staying out of my way.

No wonder “bureaucrat” is an insult.

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