Civil insurrection.

COLUMN: EDITORIAL

Another last minute budget gets Boylston through another year, but the town is hardly unscathed. Every department was cut, and next year, the town faces the same problems. West Boylston is in the same boat. It was only a one-time insurgence of cash from a commercial development project that helped that town avoid major cuts this year.

So, where does that leave voters? Choose to raise your own taxes or pay the consequences. It's a heck of a choice, and someone needs to answer for it.

For far too long, parents have paid fees for everything their children do at school beyond the basics. Even getting to school costs money, unless you walk. Yet, charter schools and vocational education schools have been left untouched, while they cost more to send students to and, according to plenty of media reports, have built up their savings accounts.

If you believe every child deserves the type of education that's right for them, then charter and voke schools are a good thing. But when it takes away from the student whose college choice depends on the education offered at the local public school, then it's time to re-evaluate the system.

As the Beacon Hill bunch proposes even more education reform, we say how about paying for the system we have right now? Locally, contracts have to meet the money that will be available tomorrow. Not what was available yesterday.

But, political reality being what it is, elected officials can't do it alone. You need to take the anger that has been thrown around recent town meetings to those legislators and to those routine meetings where the work gets done. Because, not until the outside interests are forced to feel the heat will anything really change.