A Good Friend and Republican . . .

I must tell you that I count several Republicans as good friends.  Today I spoke at great length to one gentlemen and colleague.  We are both educators and I was, respectfully, commenting that I didn't understand why Republicans in the State House and Senate, don't seem to be wanting to share the love with our public schools and the children they serve.  He agreed that they seem to have an agenda that is not supportive of public education.  Sadly, I believe that it was House Majority Leader Stam who was quoted to have said something to the effect that his vision was that all schools become Charter Schools. 

What a great notion!  We could all have staffs and administrators who have some unlicensed! staff on board.  We could all lack adequate financial or curricular oversight!  What a great idea!  We could all be supervised by a new agency, created by the very people who claim to want to cut budgets.  (Personally, I think that since they derive their funding through their local school boards, they should be accountable to them!) 

Well, truthfully, I know of some fine Charter Schools.  But I haven't seen one yet that can compete with our innovative public schools.  At the end of the day, many people would agree that parents should be able to choose to whatever extent possible.  My colleague and I love our public schools and the good people who work hard to grow our children, the children of North Carolina.  Neither of us understand the attitude of the majority party regarding the public schools of North Carolina.  You see, the schools must have done something right.  The majority of our elected officials attended public schools.

Now, adding insult to injury, the majority party has proposed a budget which reduces public school funding by 1 and 1/4 billion dollars.  Ironically, if they would agree to extend the 1% sales tax for another year, the funds raised could completely close that gap, keep classroom sizes reasonable, and keep thousands of people in the education business employed.  These employed people would make purchases, pay taxes (not take unemployment insurance and medical benefits, food stamps, and suffer costly foreclosed mortgages)  I don't know, it just makes common sense to me.

I wonder what you think!