Re “Five Assertions for Parents and ACE to Ponder”
Bryan Tjomsland writes:
Further, consider the laws of consumer behavior relative to price. Parent donations (demand) are elastic. As the price increases, demand decreases. It must be expected that parents will donate less as each donated dollar buys less. If you increase the price of adjuncts, many parents will simply conclude they cannot afford to support the program. All parties like to express support for the adjunct program. However, the very real possibility that unionization will end the program must be front and center to any discussion.
Donations = Parental Love
I don't see an end to the successful and popular adjunct program at El Marino Language School because I don't think parents want to surrender control over the program or stop donating because of costs or loss “of value,” as suggested by Bryan Tjomsland's first assertion last Friday. Before that happens, the notably well-organized parent group at El Marino would probably decide to petition the CCUSD to become a conversion or independent charter language school to insulate their school's programs.
False Assumption
Mr. Tjomsland makes the false assumption that the education of our children is some kind of tangible consumer product that can be bought and sold, like a frisbee. The consumer theory he references suggests that as costs go up, demand for the product would go down and the other side of the coin, as costs go down, demand would, therefore, increase.
Donations Are Not Demands
The only “demand” in El Marino's equation is ALLEM's consistent demand for the parents to donate $X to help fund the adjunct program. The ALLEM demand for donations from parents is not going away anytime soon. It could be yet another issue for a lengthy discussion on the subject of District-wide equity among our elementary schools.
Following Mr. Tjomland's thinking, it would follow that as our taxes go up to pay for the increased cost of educating our children, the demand for an education would decrease. I don't follow that logic, either.
State Demands
The state of California legally mandates that our children go through some sort of educational system, whether private, home-schooled or public, and to graduate by a certain age with knowledge of a learned set of standards and concepts. These state demands will not be going away even if costs of that mandated education increase over the next few years.
Economy of Scale
If, as Mr. Tjomsland suggests, the cost for the “unionized” adjuncts does increase, using the consumer theory of supply and demand, the only way to bring down the cost of the adjuncts, then, would be to increase the supply of adjuncts in the classroom and use the theory of the Economy of Scale to lower costs.
That is not going to happen anytime soon, either, now is it?
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
