Your front-page article Aug. 5 detailing the continuing failures of our public schools is disturbing but not surprising. The problem persists because we do not spend enough money on education. Perhaps another hundred million dollars or so would solve the problem. How about a billion? It's also obvious that we have far too few overpaid administrators. Even more surprising is how this can happen with the collection of geniuses we have on the school board.
The crux of the problem is that we test students on reading and writing. Bad approach. Let's test them on the important issues such as self-esteem and the virtues of diversity. The scores would skyrocket.
In the meantime, we need for the Democrats on the board of commissioners to institute an immediate 100 percent property tax increase and put in a countywide lottery so that something can be done about the embarrassingly low $43,000 average teacher salary. Of course, they have to work 10 months. We must also immediately add more administrators, bringing them up to level of the average parochial school system. Then perhaps we could get a quarterly, audited financial report signed by the superintendent (see Sarbanes-Oxley) detailing where every dollar goes.
Tony Moschetti
High Point
News & Record
August 8, 2005
