KTEC: Vision not yet right

I grew up in Indianapolis, Ind., - a city and state that engaged in a well-known, decade-long dalliance with the Ku Klux Klan. At one point in the mid 1920s, the Klan counted in its membership one-third of all native-born, white males residing within the state, the governor, a senator, four of the seven Congressional representatives, the majority of the members of both houses of the General Assembly, as well as the mayor of Indianapolis, and the majority of the members of the Marion County Republican Central Committee.

In addition to the usual racism, the Indiana Klan embraced a confused, but lurid mish-mash of constitutionalist and statist propositions. Under the slogan "return to the Constitution" they called for a new constitutional convention, repeal of the 17th Amendment, and the return of all U.S. armed forces stationed overseas; all the while favoring public financing of elections, stronger enforcement of the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) and abolition of the right to both private and home schooling.

At the end of the decade, when straying Hoosier conservatives came to their senses and returned to plain-Jane Republicanism, they preferred to pass the whole Klan episode off as a sort of fling, a rough patch best left unmentioned. When I was a boy, it was widely noted that although there were a few cross-burnings and beatings in those days, no actual lynching activity ever took place. And as for the Klan's political program, it amounted to a few embarrassing, but widely ignored planks in the state Republican Party platform, which were quickly abandoned when the moment passed.

But that oral tradition didn't tell the whole story. The KKK did leave one lasting legacy.

The Klan supported a massive increase in funding for public education in the city of Indianapolis, and they were successful in convincing the electorate to float enough bonds to go on a high school building spree the like of which had never been seen.

Possibly the citizens thought that any increased spending on education couldn't be a bad thing, no matter who proposed it. After all, what right-thinking person could object to a new high school in the center of the "Negro" neighborhood with a state-of the art athletic complex; or, a vocational-technical annex for the high school on the immigrant east side; or, relocation/renovation of two aging high schools to the predominantly "white" north side?

Unfortunately, what the Indianapolis voters failed to appreciate was the insidious structure back of the building program. The shrewd design and placement of the schools, coupled with established red-lining policies of the Indianapolis Public School District bureaucracy produced some well-calculated, "unforeseen" results.

For something like four decades those two north-side high schools churned out a steady stream of businessmen, doctors, lawyers, engineers, United States senators, members of Congress, and noted architects, authors and broadcasters, like Michael Graves, Kurt Vonnegut and, yes, David Letterman. All the while, the "colored" school, Crispus Attucks, turned out a few professionals, many more top-notch athletes, like NBA hall of famer Oscar Robertson, and a great mass of manual laborers. As for the "immigrant" Arsenal Technical School, well, it certainly produced a couple generations of very good Irish and Italian American tradesmen.

Rather than promoting greater diversity and opening up opportunity within the workforce, all of that misplaced spending had an opposite, reactionary effect.

This little history lesson is meant to explain why I struggle with the joint school district Kootenai Technical Education Campus (KTEC) project proposed for Rathdrum. As a longtime Rathdrum booster and believer that education is the solution to nearly every, if not every problem, by all rights I should support it - and I would, if the proposed organizational structure back of the facility had the likelihood of bringing about the stated objectives.

To explore just one interesting alternative structure, say, if KTEC were constituted as a tech focused charter school, the complex could be built at two-thirds the cost by the manufacturing consortium, or other grant-backed not-for-profit and leased back by the school. Thereafter, and in perpetuity, it would operate on 70 percent of the cost of a standard public school, impose no additional property tax burden, while each and every penny of the enhanced state funding received would remain with the student at the campus.

By contrast, as the proposed operational structure stands, the facility will be needlessly expensive to build and operate, and will constitute a tempting opportunity for the districts to warehouse "problem" students while retaining a portion of the state attendance apportionment funding ostensibly intended for that student's benefit. This might jump-start construction, and alleviate a few short-term logistical and financial headaches for the districts, but it could ultimately short-change the taxpayers and the kids at KTEC.

No doubt, if that happened, it would be an "unforeseen" consequence.

Some might say if you have enough money you can put new wine into old wineskins; I'm not so sure. It certainly didn't work in Indianapolis all those years ago. And it's a hard call, but we can support choice in education, and the KTEC vision in Rathdrum - just not this KTEC - and not this vote!

Perhaps if it is defeated, the school districts will take a breath and investigate a more fitting organizational structure, one rising to the task of their lofty KTEC vision.

Paul Matthews is a longtime Rathdrum-area resident and architect.