Emotions obscure School Finance 101

Two recent letters to the editor point to what seems to be a key factor limiting public dialog on school finances -- i.e., the emotional reactions of professional educators.

After reading every chapter of your series on School Finance 101, I was surprised that Marianne Olivers on Dec. 30 charged your coverage provided "slanted perspective" and Terri Grahams felt that you "present only the side that educators are money mongers."

Alan Greenspan, the past chairman of the Federal Reserve, once said, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts," and unfortunately, these letter-writers seem to be referring mainly to their own facts.

Your series did a nice job of laying out the facts and provided a framework that concerned citizens can use to evaluate how money is being spent in individual districts.

This isn't the first time we've seen this type of emotional reaction by professional educators, but there's no reason it should keep reasonable people from asking good questions about how wisely our money is being spent by our schools.

The facts show that the management and spending practices are not achieving many of our desired results. As a community, we need to confront this performance issue now while we still have time to respond.

Bill Bishop

Barrington