Falling Leaves and School Funding

I was noticing today that leaves from one of my trees were littering my neighbor's yard. He has no maple trees, so I knew the leaves were from my tree. This probably happens every year, but I've never heard my neighbor complain.

I'm guessing that some of the leaves that I raked today were from one of my neighbor's trees. I raked them up and plopped them by the street. They'll get vacuumed and toted to some huge composting site.

One disturbing message we've been seeing in the rhetoric related to school funding here in Illinois is that people with children in the schools should be the ones to pay for their children's education. Those without children, or those who send their children to private schools, this argument goes, should not have to bear the tax burden to educate the students in the system today.

There are certainly many aspects to our school funding problems, and in Illinois support seems to be growing for an overhaul of how we fund education. But while we're waiting for our political leaders to take action, we need to address this troubling reluctance to share responsibility for the education of our youth, whoever they are at the moment.

I'll rake your leaves if they end up in my yard. Will you rake mine?