To the Editor:
How many more times do we have to read about the poorly performing schools twinned with internal issues? And for how long do we continue to seek “savings” by cutting our library hours and reducing personnel? Like most Americans, I do not mind paying taxes, but I really, really mind how they are spent.
Public education and libraries are highly important to me and flow from my heritage. My mother was a great Ohio public school teacher for 35 years and my library interest is twofold: my own love of reading and my father’s 45 years library board service. As a public school and state-college graduate, I owe ever so much of my personal success to this wonderful national benefit: public education.
So, when I read that our library continues with cutback hours and a diminished budget, I get very upset. We are seriously shortchanging the many children who benefit from visiting a library, being introduced to books and having access to computers and the Internet — all Alexandria families are not rich, so we are depriving the under-privileged when we short-change our libraries. We apparently have money for $700,000 trolleys and outside legal and planning consultants. What is wrong with this picture! If our legal and planning departments can’t “cut the mustard,” then they should be replaced with employees who can because their salaries are very handsome and the savings realized from not using consultants could be spent on our children.
Now let’s talk about our schools — they do get abundant taxpayer dollars but unfortunately the money flows in the wrong direction: upstairs to administrators and not downstairs into the classrooms. A Virginia Department of Education study last year reported Alexandria with the worst ratio, which highlights a policy that is lopsided. Another policy that is of concern is the emphasis in the schools — at least at T.C. Williams. When I ran into two European teachers who recently were at our high school for an exchange program, I heard something from them that I had heard whispered about town. That is, students just have to show up and be quiet to get passed. On the other hand, advanced students are receiving all the “teaching” — the rest are being warehoused. No wonder we see too little improvement by our children despite the superintendent’s remark in last week’s Packet “that our accomplishments are amazing.”
Our children are America’s most valuable resource, and public libraries and schools are great contributors to ensuring each of our children gets a chance to have a successful life. Alexandria’s priorities are simply out of whack: lots of new buildings, lots of goodies for the business community and not enough for our children. We keep hearing promises of improvements in our schools but we have now had at least an entire decade of poor results — results that affect each and every student who did not get what he or she needed in our classrooms. As a career counselor, I firmly believe that each human has the desire to achieve; parents and great teachers can help each of us find and nourish our spark.
Let’s stop spending money on consultants, fancy buildings and high-paid school administrators and aides and instead spend the money keeping our libraries open longer hours and school dollars dedicated to the classroom. And, please, school board members and City Council, stop accepting excuses for poor outcomes — we’ve heard enough of those to last a lifetime.
Linda Couture
Alexandria