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The present system
of an elected school board which has all the responsibilities of
educating children but no power to fund their actions has proven over
and over again to be silly. It is slight improvement over having the
Governor appoint a school board member based on who the Rotary Club
wants to picked.
Each year we see
the school board prepare a budget, negotiate with the teachers for pay
and then sit down to make a presentation to the commissioners to fund
the school system.
Sometimes we see
school board members who are out of touch with reality on spending. We
have an atrium at the Tech Center which has no purpose. An architect
had this fancy fantasy one night, drew it up on his plans and brought it
to Leonardtown where it quickly drew support. It’s a shame that some
more imaginative minds didn’t see the opportunity to make the atrium the
centerpiece of the greenhouse and landscaping design classes, but they
didn’t. Too often frivolous design has gone into new schools or too
much land is selected, driving up the cost and making a landowner rich.
Not long ago, the
St. Mary’s school staff came up with a list of more than 60 sites for a
new school but found all of them to be deficient. That deal was an
all-time piece of lunacy. Schools can be multi-story, they don’t have
to be sprawling one-story buildings. Kids can get exercise going up and
down stairs. It might help the flabby kids to do the stairs a half
dozen times a day.
But while a
different system of running and funding schools can be tried the chief
problem with the schools still lies with the parents.
By and large, far
too many parents are raising self-centered, arrogant and plainly stupid
kids. They make life hell for their fellow students who are trying to
learn, for the teachers and staff who are trying to teach them and
simply rip off the taxpayers who are paying for it all.
There could come a
day when public schools simply won’t work any longer and only a private
education makes sense.
If it comes to
that, it would be a sad day. But in the land of the politically correct
education establishment and the “entitled” masses of dopes, the
standards will sink each year until there is no longer value in public
education.
Natural Resources Police Recover 2 Drowning Victims, Rescue
Stranded Jet Skiers,
Make Drug Arrests












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