Re: Education

[Jim Green <JMGreen@SISNA.COM>]

> There is no guarantee whatever that block grants will "get to the
> students" unless fairly strict controls are placed on how the money
> can be used, just the contrary to the intent of block grants. They
> will be able to be used for *anything* that the administrator of the
> grant wants, including buying a  helicopter for the Superintendant of
> Public Instruction or painting the Governor's office so it looks
> nicer when he entertains the Secretary of Education. I

Hugh, you quite right unfortunately!  But with more levels of
administrators, there are more offices to decorate.  Would you settle for
one helicopter for some SupPubSchools or several for the SecED and for the
local fed administrator, and the governor and then the local SupSchools.

You are quite right to worry about the grubby grimy grabbing hands of
politicians. That is why I would rather get the money as far as possible
from as many of the as possible.  I am not talking about a "right" way and
a "wrong" way,but the lest damaging way.  Ideally we would pay highly
dedicated and competent teachers personally with chicken the way it used to
be done and would stop if the teacher did not perform well.  Watch "Little
House on the Prairie" for the old time version.

We will now hear all the reasons why that can't be done -- but we would
hear loudest from the NEA.

This last Monday one very large Utah school district went on strike for a
day.  They SAID that they wanted smaller classes and a computer in each
classroom.  But if you offered the smaller classroom size and more
computers but then would not be able to give them a 10% salary increase,
_wow_!!!

It is the money ------!

Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen