The School Board

Is Failing The Community

To the Editor:

Passing the school budget rewards school officials for fabrications and poor management.

Do you remember Mrs Main’s letter in The Bee about her seventh grader being placed in a low class without her knowledge (although her child had high scores on sixth grade math tests)? This should raise concerns with parents having similar experiences.

Consider the failed education fads tried: Modern Math, Integrated Math, Whole Language, etc.

The result of children in lower level courses is they fall behind. This costs parents and children more than they realize. Because those children will need tutor classes, private school, or spend a year or more at the remedial level in college before they can perform college level work. This will costs parents near $20,000 more per child on top of high taxes.

More money and fancy buildings do not guarantee quality education, but choosing policies that improved academic proficiency will.

Choices of our BOE that fail students and our community:

1. The poor way our superintendent handled the incident when a student was tied up in the furnace room.

2. Overbuilding of the high school addition by 30 percent more than was reasonable needed with a declining student population. And remember that the BOE did not want to rebid the project. They said rebidding would cost us more but they were wrong. Rebidding saved us millions.

3. Too many politically correct classes instead of academics.

4. The 46 percent drug use at our high school that has not been dealt with effectively.

5. Students are allowed to graduate with only two years of math. No solid geometry, trigonometry, or calculus is required, and they call this education.

6. American history is optional.

7. Classes below “Honors” and Advanced Placement” do not produce students capable of effectively doing college work.

8. We have four levels of classes plus alternative education. Note: Alternative education is a waste of money and just babysits kids. Parents need to understand that if kids cannot successfully handle the level 3 or level 4 classes, they probably will not be able to handle the competitiveness of life. These funds and teachers would be better utilized if redirected to the other four levels. Many quality school systems do not offer alternative education and have better results than us.

9. The US Constitution is not taught in depth.

10. The BOE implying “We can wring more money out of the people” is unacceptable. Our BOE failed to provide a balance between school needs and taxpayers’ ability to pay.

11. Always threatening to cut teachers when they know that is not true.

12. Th         e excessive bonuses paid to administrators last year by the BOE, during a depression.

A wake up for parents: Only students in the top two levels of classes would be successful in school in France, Germany, The Czech Republic, China, and Japan. This is relevant because students from these countries will be their competition in life. These countries also spend much less per pupil on education.

Daniel Kormanik

85 Great Ring Road, Sandy Hook                                    July 9, 2010