As I walked out of chiropractor's torture room yesterday, the secretary and a woman in the other examinating room were talking about this week's referendum. The woman in a nasal voice shouted loudly, probably for my benefit, "Why should MY money go to THOSE children?"

Four local towns fund our regional high school. My town is taxed the lightest, but sends the most kids to the high school. The richer towns pay more and send less kids. The richer towns want to change the formula, so the average house in our town would have an $800 hike in taxes, while a house in the richer town would see a $1,000 decrease in taxes. The referendum itself won't change anything. The formula was based on a court decision years ago. The richer towns are gearing up for a big, expensive lawsuit, which they will surely lose, because the state is pushing all these small towns to regionalize further.

Local politics aside, let's just go back the shrill lady's comment, "Why should MY money go to THOSE children?"

I'm quite certain that this lady isn't happy than ANY of her money to going to ANY child. She doesn't understand that when you combine all sources of taxes, more money actually goes to people who are 65 or older. Between pensions, healthcare, and social security, most of my tax money is going to her.

Even if she was aware of this fact, I'm not sure she would care, because we don't have a consensus in this country that education is a good thing for our society. Not only is education a good thing for our particular children, it is good for all children. We're so stuck in the localism of schools that people are unwilling to spend money to help kids fifty yards from their own house. They don't understand that if we have a better educated workforce, we will be a more productive society that spends less on welfare and incarceration.

Until we build a consensus about education, we're not going to see any real changes.