Hard work, discipline are what's missing at schools

Sadly, Doug Graham missed the real headline in his article reporting that Lake County school scores dropped. That headline should be, "Despite some of the highest real estate taxes in the world, less than 40 percent of Illinois and Lake County students meet or exceed state school standards."

The vast majority of our real estate taxes in Lake County go to our schools. And we have some of the highest real estate taxes in the U.S. and the world. Despite those incredibly high taxes, according to Mr. Graham's article, only 34 percent of Lake County elementary and middle school students meet or exceed school requirements and only 38 percent of Illinois high school student do. That is a disaster. The U.S. spends more money per student than any country in the world. Yet in the last international PISA tests in 2016, the U.S. came out 23rd in reading in the world, 24th in science, and a horrific 39th in math.

The conclusion from this data should be obvious. Money is not the solution to a good education. Hard work and discipline is, which is why counties that spend far less than we do on education like China, Singapore and Japan have students that do much better than ours.

They don't have "therapy puppies" or "safe places" and they don't give "rewards for breathing" in their schools. They focus on hard work and discipline with strict rules and high expectations. Maybe we should try that concept instead of raising property taxes.

Randy Rossi

Grayslake