Dear Everyone;
After the $3 million school study was released showing California schools were having serious problems the SF Examiner had an editorial about the problems. I took the opportunity to present a radical fix for California schools along with some pertinent facts and the SF Examiner agreed and published with affiliation.
Right below my LTE was one from a school librarian talking about the lack of librarians. Here's a fact I found for a previous op-ed: California has 4,000 school psychologists but only 1,000 school librarians. Priorities seem a little skewed.
Ron Getty
SF Libertarian
http://www.examiner.com/a-628590~Letters__March_20__2007.html
Letters: March 20, 2007
How to fix poorly performing schools
Californias defective government school system needs a radical fix [A chance to deliver school reform, March 19].
The gargantuan $63 billion school system is a public jobs program with highly paid baby sitters averaging $56,000 in pay; 6.3 million students attend 9,300 schools with 300,000 teachers and 25,000 support personnel. The Department of Education has another 2,500 employees and a $300 million budget.
Politicians and school bureaucrats control government schools miring them in legislation and red tape-ridden bureaucratic guidelines. Politicians dictating whats taught and how its taught results in dumbed-down curriculum with emphasis on passing mandated school funding tests instead of learning.
Remove politics from education by repealing the politicized Education Code. Dismantle the Department of Education and return control of schools to local parents. Eliminate school taxes and require parents to pay for their own childrens education. Stop forcing people to pay for someone elses children to attend malfunctioning government schools.
Ron Getty
Chair, Initiatives Committee
Libertarian Party of San Francisco