I both support Randy Mager’s letter in favor of Measure A and share his wonder at the many odd reasons — from strange and irrelevant to clueless and nasty — given in opposition.

Support of our children should be the only issue. Educating our kids is no less a responsibility than feeding and clothing them. They can’t do it on their own.

Given today’s global economy, they will often be competing against workers from countries that place education above all else. Going up against not only cheaper but better-educated foreign workers as well will be brutal, and if our kids can’t compete, neither can our country.

California’s per-student funding is somewhere between 31st and 46th in the country depending on whom you believe. Considering how much farther a buck goes in the rest of the country, even 31st is a disaster, leaving California with the largest class sizes of any state — an already-ugly reality.

Opponents of Measure A cite actions of the school board or superintendent, the firing of a coach or the alleged imperfect distribution of Measure A’s tax burden. Some, or all, of those complaints may have merit. But if we deny support for our kids until the adults who run things are perfect, then we might as well just close the schools and go home.

Some say teachers should take pay cuts to save other teachers’ jobs. But if the whole city can’t afford the financial burden, why dump it on a few hundred teachers? We don’t pay them near enough as it is.

And a particularly nasty Measure A opponent ridiculed one mom’s fear that an election loss will limit her child’s educational opportunities. Mr. Charming thinks mom should quit whining — the oncoming financial train wreck will teach her daughter an all-important lesson about the limits of real life. It’s a win-win.

We also could stop feeding our kids to teach them about hunger and famine — something they will likely know first-hand when our soon-to-be ignorant and uneducated citizenry makes stupid decisions, destroys our economy and brings the country to its knees. Just another win–win.

Peter Gunther

Davis

Comments

comments