LETTERS: PARENTS WILL USE TAXES AS LEVERAGE

To the editor:

My five children long ago left the K-12 school environment. Four of the five attended college. Three graduated. One of those is pursuing an advanced degree. Because I was a military professional, my children attended a variety of Department of Defense and public schools throughout the country. I spent enough time tutoring my children and helping them with their homework to have a clear impression that the schools offered tough fundamentals and more and that no matter what the local politics the parents never lost sight of the basic objective: a sound education for their children.

While I no longer have children in public schools, I continue to pay taxes that support the education of others. In this state as in so many others, that tax primarily is a property tax, and I own property. Because of my children's children, because I pay taxes and because I have at least some measure of concern that everyone ought to have the opportunity to benefit, I retain an interest in the education of our children.

The basic model in this country for public education is that of publicly funded and generally common curricula in public facilities under local control. While other forms of schooling are permitted (private, parochial), a barrier has always effectively prevented them from being broadly supported by tax revenue. For a variety of reasons, that firewall is beginning to break down.

Three things are becoming painfully clear: 1. The quality of publicly funded education is slowly deteriorating. 2. Money and facilities, even at fabulous levels, cannot by themselves restore a dysfunctional school system. 3. The way in which we use technology, particularly the marvelous new egalitarianism in information access and exchange, will alter the fundamental structure of both formal and informal learning.

My impression is that the public education establishment does not have the same list of priorities as do the parents of the children being taught. Yes, many teachers and administrators have children, and many of those children attend public schools. And a very large percentage do not. Parents have uprooted their families and evacuated disastrous city school districts. Parents have paid doubly to send their children to private and parochial schools because they consider a good education behind only love and good health in order of importance in their lives. The public education establishment has called for more money. It has responded with great concern over sinecure and staff issues. It has affected whole generations for life with educational theories that would never have seen the light of day had they been subjected to the same rigorous functional scrutiny given to drug candidates by the Food and Drug Administration. The establishment has repeatedly arranged the deck chairs.

I'll decline to make the ritual, gratuitous genuflection to the fact that there are good schools and good teachers. The point is irrelevant to the problem at hand. The disease in our schools is systemic, leaving us with but two categories: school which have failed and those which, given enough time and money, will fail.

Because we live in a republic and must work through our elected representatives, fundamental change will occur at a deliberate pace. But change will occur. The public school system will remain, but when parents can move their tax dollars with their children in a competitive environment, they will have the leverage to force improvement. When that happens, our public school system will begin to stand shoulder to shoulder with and offer true equal access to our world-class and fiercely competitive college system.

BOB RATHBURN

Piedmont