(In response to ‘School district: Get out of transportation business,? The Citizen, June 12, page 6.)
Dear Editor,
I’m not sure what the good doctor is mad at, parents who waste gas, being taxed, his perception that schools are just elaborate day care centers, or alternative mass transportation.
The district will not be laying off 16 teachers. The lottery contribution to the school aid package, while millions of dollars, represents less that 6 percent of the amount the state spends on education; a most worthwhile endeavor.
Bussing goes back for many years, I used to ride a bus to school and I started school sometime around the invention of the school bus. I don’t agree with wasting gas or frivolous spending, but children have to get to school somehow and bussing is perhaps a safer and more cost effective way to get them there than having 600 parents showing up at school in the morning and then again sometime in the afternoon. Furthermore, putting people from the community out of a job is utter nonsense in the current economic climate. I might just as well suggest that doctors? fees be state regulated and that doctors pay me for my time sitting in their offices for a half hour past the time of my scheduled appointment, but that’s not a viable fix to the incredible spiraling cost of healthcare.
A better use of your letter writing skills would be to contact your legislators and ask them to trim their benefits and find a way to better fund education as a whole. Ask them why we spend $40K a year on prisoners and only $7K a year on a child’s education, understanding that for each $7 we spend today most likely will save us $40 in the future.
We need a better plan for funding education, period.
Mark Griffiths
Goodrich