Back is the way forward

To the Editor ( May 15, 2011 ) - not printed -

A sarcastic answer to the school situation.

Im sure we can cut school budgets by 60%, never mind this small time trimming. Let’s look at being minimal to the max, so we can spend wisely paying more towards our debt.

What do we need for a school? A building that is safe; does not leak or make people sick, has good insulation so we don’t need to run the heat much and lots of windows so we use natural light and less electricity. An all in one gym, cafeteria, auditorium, etc. One class room per grade is fine; we just need to make them really big.

Which brings me to the teachers; we only need one per class. They can each have an assistant, min-wage worker, to handle the extra load. Education specialists can be assigned so one will service five schools in a day per week rotation.

Books are nice but not necessary; this is the internet information age after all. Teachers can assign readings from publicly available text files. The school can be made entirely paperless, with any necessary documents being e-mailed to the student / parent to print at home.

As for art and music, sports and drama, we need to cut the costs down, by making the parents pay directly for the activity their child wants to be involved in. The kids can help with fund raising activities; door to door begging.

We can also cover the cost of school busses by charging each student a monthly pass. The passes should be priced to at lest cover the cost of gas.

I know these ideas seem a bit extreme, so we need one more thing; a catchy motto. “The way into the future is by making our school look like something from the past.” No that’s too long, how about; “Back is the way forward.”

Think about it.