If you are truly interested in helping public education, vote no on Measure S. Vote no to any idea that adds to the fat of public school administration. This is the fat that has ruined our schools. The time has come to cut it out. Cut the administrators, not the teachers or the classes. The Department of Education has grown to a cancerous huge tumor on the backs of our kids and teachers. It needs more, more to keep growing. Cut it out. Cut it now while the patient is still living.
Cut all school bureaus, agencies, guidelines, etc. that slow down the teaching process. Cut all new programs added to the backs of our teachers over the last 20 years. Cut the mandated paperwork and the people who mandated the paperwork. Twenty-five percent of the teacher’s class time is devoted to filing out administrative forms.
Our school system is shutting down, brought to a standstill by this Baby Huey on its back. Stop the waste. No more experts. Reduce the administrators. This tumor must be removed. No more blood wasted on its growth. Give the tax money directly to the schools, the teachers, and the kids. This is the way we did it before the Department of Education, and that system worked.
The school administration is corrupted by good intentions. They require the “best” grade five math book. A $45 book that weighs six pounds, written by the best mathematicians money can buy. However, it is no good for teaching – too overwritten, too confusing (try reading one and you use this math every day). It is like wanting to walk across the street, but are forced to drive a Cadillac to get there because it is the best.
Fear of criticism, of not getting the best has given our kids 50 pound book bags, sore backs and diagnoses of ADD when these incomprehensible books drive them crazy.
These comments sound familiar? This is exactly what the teachers have been telling us for years! They need more control of their classes, less interference by the administration. Teachers I know say that 50 percent of the administration can be cut and it would improve the classroom!
And to those of you who worry that “public education” might suffer unless it has more money? I say you care more about your cars than you do your kids. If your BMW came from the dealer mistuned, you would threaten lawsuit. Yet your fifth graders graduate without learning grade five math and you think it is okay? And when the administrators who prevent your kid from learning ask for more money, you think that is okay too? Would you honestly behave like this with your Mercedes mechanic?
School administrators have recently announced that even if Measure S passes, the classroom cuts will continue as planned. Cut the classrooms? It is time to cut the administrators. Begin the real process of saving public education. “No on S” – millions for education and not one cent for incompetence.
Jim Glennon