PUBLIC VIEWPOINT: Get Area School Priorities Right

Posted: November 10, 2009 at 3:49 a.m.

• Print item
• E-mail
• Share
• Tweet

SPRINGDALE — Some of us are still mulling over the fact that the millage increase to build a new high school failed.

Voter turnout was very poor.

The fact that we just approved a millage hike in 2007 which went into effect in 2008 didn’t help matters. The market value of property has fallen precipitously from the market value used for computing property taxes and vacant properties, especially business properties, are more visible. For Sale signs are mounting in number. It’s an economic crisis brought on by the gigantic disparity in the distribution of wealth. It’s time to tighten the belt - again if you survived the first Great Depression.

Bailouts are no good if working people are ignored in the “fixing.” The rich are still going to get richer and the poor will continue to get poorer.

Look how big banks and Wall Street are back to their ludicrous bonuses after the bailout. Read “Nothing to Fear” (about Franklin Roosevelt) and the worthless pieces of paper being sold and the “blue sky laws,”. It would not surprise me to find out they are selling nonexistent stock. Everyinvestigative agency should be examining Wall Street and the big banks. Franklin Roosevelt saved our America - but there must have been a smarter electorate back then. That period is so much like what is happening today. As the old saying goes if we don’t know history we repeat history. When 10 percent of the country owns 90 percent of the wealth that is a depression.

And they gripe that they have to pay most of the taxes. They are not asking anyone to swap places with them. Those tea party participants look like working class people (probably unemployed) getting paid by the Republican organizers to make fools of themselves.

Our children deserve the best.

Our feckless economy will make building tough. A large beautiful high school is not going to affect what goes on in the classroom.

A stressed out teacher or illprepared teacher will not be changed by the building. The philosophy that teens have grown up and no longer need caring people around is just not true.

We never outgrow the need for approval. Science shows that our bodies mature much sooner than our brains which demands morehelp, more supervision at the adolescent stage than any other.

Humongous high schools have proven to be a failure and unsafe. The greatest difference between college preparatory schools and public high schools is the number of students in the classroom. Buildings are expensive. More money should be appropriated to students and teachers than building. There is a need to look inside the school building and not outside. To reduce the number of students in a classroom is going to require more teachers and as more women continue to go into other fields there will be a shortage of teachers. In the past there has been no recruitment because there were more than enough teachers to go around. Magnet schools are going to continue to grow taking students away from the large high school with the big athletic department.

Money would not be a problem if we didn’t have to keep building prisons and if we invested in our schools, students would graduate to jobs or college or both instead of prison. Go figure.

VIRGINIA SPENCER / Fayetteville

Opinion, Pages 5 on 11/10/2009

Comments

To report abuse or misuse of this area please hit the "Suggest Removal" link in the comment to alert our online managers. Please read our comment policy.

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.