When it comes to brute cunning it’s hard to match the Wake County School Board – it’s budget time and they’ve met the County Commissioners in fiscal battle head-on.

The Board says it can cut dropout rates and graduate ninety percent of its students by 2013 – but there’s a catch. It needs more money. A lot more. How much more? It wants – just about – to double its budget. The Board wants an eighty-percent spending increase ($250 million a year) – and isn’t worried about how much County Commissioners have to raise taxes to pay for it.

The School Board’s put the Commissioners in a political corner, saying, Do you want to save these poor underprivileged students who’re dropping out? Then come up with the money.

But stop a moment to think. How certain is School Superintendent Del Burns – who drew up this plan – that he can deliver on his promise? Can we put it in the bank? Or is this – purely and simply – a political maneuver to get the Commissioners to double the School Board’s budget?

Right now, today, Wake County offers every student a world-class education. Free. We just spent a cool billion dollars to build shiny new schools – but 20% of the students still drop out.

The school board’s theory is if we spend twice as much money and give the students an even better world-class education – the dropouts will change their minds and stay in school.

But if free world-class schools don’t appeal to dropouts – would super-duper world-class schools ignite a thirst for knowledge? The school board will probably say they’ll hire mentors and surrogate parents and set up all kinds of special classrooms – but, it’s my experience most teenagers have a mind of their own when it comes to what they like and don’t like and a sixteen-year-old who doesn’t want to sit in a classroom isn’t likely to change his mind when you tell him, Well, you’ll be sitting in a better classroom next year.

I’m afraid the fact is Superintendent Burns has made a crafty political move – he’s checkmated the County Commissioners by selling a pig in a poke. After all, they give him the money now and he’s got five years before anyone can say, Well, that turned out to be a billion-dollar misjudgment on your part.

The Superintendent has also lined up the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce to support his proposal. In the old days Chambers of Commerce were conservative business organizations. Anti-taxes. Anti-regulations. But they’ve adapted to the modern age. Today they’re lobbying organizations. Their goal isn’t to stop regulations and red tape. It’s to get government to spend other people’s money to help them. And it’s hard to argue with their logic; they lobby for projects like civic centers and tax subsidies for corporations. It costs taxpayers billions. But costs them nothing. I’m not sure how schools fit into their equation; perhaps doubling the schools’ budget will bring more people to Raleigh to help the labor market.

Anyway, the county commissioners have to figure out how to (politically) say no to the business lobby and to cutting the dropout rate – or raise spending (and taxes) $250 million. What can they do? Well, they can offer the School Board to hold a vote – a real cut-and-dry, clearly-worded referendum that reads like this: The School Board would like to increase its budget 80% to cut the drop-out rage from 30% to 10%. Their plan will cost $250 million a year. To pay for it we’ll have to raise property taxes x%. Do you vote Yes or No?

That should settle it one way or the other.

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