Letter to the Editor

There is much discussion on raising property taxes for the Huntsville City Schools to be voted on January 22, 2002. I question the 3-mil increase without accountability. I was active as the Secretary, VP and later as the President of the Grissom ROTC Booster Club from 1997 to 2001. The Booster Club did much for the students in school activities and to improve school conditions. To name a few of our activities, the parents and students ran computer lines; wire brushed, primed and painted buildings; rebuilt and fabricated a new wooden deck; assisted and fabricated a Military Skills training grounds; found, transported, cleaned/rebuilt lockers for our students to name just a few.

On one particular occasion, the Booster Club moved books from Grissom to the main Huntsville office. We assembled parents who had trucks or vans and took off work during the week because Huntsville City Schools wouldn't support a few hours weekend opening. When we arrived at the repository, we were instructed to throw the books into an industrial dumpster. We all felt bad because the books we were throwing away were from new to 5 years old. What an incredible waste to the taxpayers! I estimate that we discarded over 11,250 books valued at over $100,000. Feeling sick to my stomach about what just happened, I reached into the "dumpster" and pulled one book out as a constant reminder of the wastefulness and lack of accountability in our city schools.

Matthew Boenker
Huntsville, Alabama

Note: This letter was written to The HuntsvilleTimes about the waste in our city schools. The HuntsvilleTimes did not print the letter, but did run a story on Sunday, January 6, 2002.

Money & Grades: Where is the Connection?
By Hugh McInnish

The Teachers Union and other vested interests are demanding more money for Huntsville Schools. But money is simply not the problem. Look carefully at the chart to the right. It depicts the spending and academic achievement of each of the three school systems in Madison County. Note that the higher the spending the lower the test scores. This echoes a pattern seen generally across the state and across the country. Money is not the problem. Furthermore claiming that money is the problem creates a distraction that impedes our efforts to discover and cure real problems.

There is no logical basis for giving the Huntsville School System more of our money. But they do have a plan. They have set a special election in the middle of winter at which their tax proposal will be the only thing on the ballot. This is a well known ploy. Without the excitement and publicity of a regular election relatively few will vote. That leaves the field open to the special interests who turn out their cohorts and impose a new tax on us all against the will of the majority.

Don't let them do it!

The chart above has percentages on the vertical axis. The test scores are shown as percent above the state average SAT score of 55. The spending is the per student per year spending expressed as a increase above the average Alabama expenditure for 1996. ($4669)

Sources: Alabama Department of Education Website, www.alsde.edu William J. Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators