Wants finance series to go further
I was amused by Mr. Quick's criticism of the Daily Herald's weekly series on the K-12 public school system. For those who missed Mr. Quick's letter, he first suggested that the Daily Herald ran the series to sell papers. The series raised serious questions about the cost effectiveness of our public school system, including data confirming that only approximately 40 percent of the revenue collected went directly into the classroom.
Incidentally, that is currently true nationally as well. Furthermore, that percentage was approximately 60 percent in the 1960s. Clearly anyone with an objective viewpoint would recognize that something as gone awry in our public school system.
Mr. Quick then goes on to impugn the integrity of the Daily Herald staff by suggesting that our local newspaper should not be trusted. What I find most disturbing about Mr. Quick's criticism is nowhere in all his ramblings did he refute any of the facts. No, he didn't provide any contradicting data, only innuendoes that the Daily Herald is deceptive. I get the feeling that Mr. Quick didn't like the message and wanted to kill the messenger.
I only hope that the Daily Herald covers the other part of the education equation, which is performance. Despite spending dramatically more per student over the last 30 or more years, our ranking among the 17 industrialized nations has fallen from seventh in the 1970s to 15th when last measured. That may be hard to accept here in our affluent suburbs but consider the disclosure earlier this year that Honor Roll students from our high schools were required to take remedial courses prior to admission to our local community colleges.
A wise man said, "One will not find solutions until he acknowledges the problem." That certainly applies to our K-12 education system. Funding obviously hasn't been the problem and throwing more money at it isn't a solution. Mr. Quick's attitude is what has contributed to the problem. He and all of us used to do our homework if we are going to rescue our public schools.
Richard B. Kaiser
Elk Grove Village