In a city of 25,000 registered voters, 740 people turned out Tuesday to vote on Lewiston’s proposed $69 million school budget.
That’s 2.8 percent of those eligible to vote.
Just pause a moment and think about that figure.
While higher than the number of voters in the past four years, statistically it represents 1 in 34 people. Realistically is represents apathy.
Voter apathy is legitimate, especially when the campaign trail is long and dirty. We simply get tired of caring.
But this vote wasn’t about a candidate, a party or power. It was about funding the critically important education of the city’s children.
No matter whether you favored the budget or not, or the reasons you feel the way you do, there’s no denying education shapes our communities.
We can’t get tired of caring about that.
Delivered well, it invigorates ideas, spawns businesses, improves understanding, drives tolerance, pushes prosperity.
Delivered poorly, the repercussions are poor job skills, low incomes, diminished hope, increased crime and shorter lifespans, among other dysfunctional things.
Education is not a luxury. It is a basic and required function of government, and one that impacts every person of any age. Every adult is a product of their own education, for good or bad.
The dismal voter turnout Tuesday signals a frightening apathy, one that indicates voters (aside from the 740 who showed up) just don’t care about schools.
They must.
Well-educated children have the best chance to become productive, healthy adults.
Just the opposite is true for children who are poorly educated, who never learn enough to earn a living wage and who then often raise another generation in poverty.
For a city to prosper, its residents need solid educational footing.
The Lewiston School District is not perfect. Test scores could be better, buildings could be nicer, graduation rates could be higher. And spending more on education doesn’t mean a better education. But there is a lot of good in Lewiston’s schools, a lot of talent and a lot of drive. People who care are changing children’s lives.
That same level of caring has to happen outside school, the kind that can spare a couple of minutes to vote on spending.
The city makes it easy: Voting is held over a 13-hour period in a single, accessible polling place that has plenty of parking.
Interestingly, the second question on Tuesday’s ballot was whether people wanted to continue voting on school spending and they overwhelming said “yes.” So, those voters sincerely want a say on the budget, unlike thousands of others who did not.
Maybe, next time, the School Committee ought to include some additional questions, as many other districts do: Why did you vote no? Was the budget too high? Too low?
It would give the district a starting point in case of another budget defeat.
Right now, the budget process starts anew.
The School Committee will go back to the table, craft a new budget and set another election date, likely to be June 14.
Make note: Go vote.
Make yourself care about the city’s future.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com
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