Reasons the education system is broken

The cheating scandal in Atlanta is a perfect example of why the schools will never have enough money. The teachers, principals and superintendents who broke the law could face charges from “tampering with state documents and lying to investigators” and could lose their jobs.

In my opinion they should all go to jail, pay back the salaries they received and forfeit all pension benefits, and return all bonus money the received. The sad part of this is that at least four of the top administrators and two principals have been removed and placed on paid leave.

Another scam is the termination of superintendents in Illinois and that packages they receive: Stanley Fields received a $100,000 separation package, Doris Hope Jackson a Mercedes-Benz, Kamala Buckner $350,000, James Tembuschs $175,000, Rosemary Hendricks $132,000, Connie Neale $127,000. These are just a few examples of what the school boards have approved for payouts for incompetent educators.

Another scam is the Head Start program. The program worked well in several pilots, but 45 years later we have spent more than $7 billion providing Head Start to nearly 1 million children each year, and Health and Human Services says that Head Start simply does not work. According to the Head Start study, which was quite comprehensive, the positives were minimal and vanished by the end of the first year. The results were so shocking that they were not released for about two years.

The dilemma: Teachers and administrators cheat and get rewarded, incompetent educators get separated and get big separation packages, teachers and unions want more money and benefits, real-estate taxes are soaring sky high, and the education process is going down the tubes. This is truly a lose, lose, lose situation.

Silvio Pontarelli

Mount Prospect