HomeMy WebLinkAboutC.054.93009_0747 (2)1a It ( t � 1994 728
happen. He thinks people are fed up with the system.
Bill Long said if they were faced with the voucher system next
year, they would continue to go the way they are going. They would
look for ways to educate children. Children are not educated like
they used to be. Unlike business they cannot fire teachers who are
not getting the job done. All they can do is reteach the teachers,
he said. That is a huge undertaking. They spent a lot of money
this year teaching teachers how to educate children.
Commissioner Boone thought they should push to change the
tenure law. Bill Long said the principal tenure rule was changed.
Mr. Long said in his opinion the tenure law probably hurts the
school system dollar -wise across the state as such as any law on
the books because a lot of them have been promoted up to get them
out of the school system, to make bigger bucks. For instance,
when a principal in a big high school is moved, the tenure law
says you have to continue to pay that principal that big salary.
The new principal law states that existing principals can
agree to change but they don't have to. They have to agree to give
up tenure. Bill Long said when you are paying a principal $100,000
a year, you are going to have great competition among principals.
Commissioner Boone said he understood there is going to be a
$2,000 tuition grant bill to be introduced into the legislature.
This would be similar to the tuition grant to private colleges now.
The idea, he said, would be to make it revenue -neutral. only those
who are just beginning to send their children to private schools
would be able to get this funding. He said this could eliminate a
lot of capital needs for the schools. He thought it might make the
public school system a lot better because it would create
competition. He thinks this bill will be proposed, but he does not
know how far it will get.
Jane Laney said private schools do not have to put up with the
unruly children, but public schools have to. Skip McCall said he
was wondering if the repercussion from that would be that the
public school system would become the dumping ground for
undesirable students. The private schools would be getting all the
best, good students and would be developing an elite private school
system and a very poor system of public schools.
Commissioner Boone said he thought there was a poor system of
public schools right now. If it did happen that 908 of the
students went to private schools, it would be a lot cheaper and 908
of the students would have a better education and the other 108
probably wouldn't be any worse. They would not be nearly as many
administrators, counselors, and people like that.
Commissioner Johnson said regardless of whether you come up
with a voucher system or whatever, if we continue to operate the
way we have, we are going to wind up to two distinct education
systems --one public and one private. The bad part of it is that
there will be two distinct segments of society. He does not think
that is what they want. Regardless of whether you are an advocate
of public education or private education, we are going to have to
get ahead of the ---- and take steps. If we don't we will be
steamrolled.
Skip McCall said education, in his opinion, not only has the
responsibility to provide a basic education in terms of reading,
writing, and arithmetic, but there are key factors that education
has to satisfy. It has to be structured in a fashion that helps to
enforce, integrate, and stimulate into society the cultural values
and principles that are necessary for society to continue to
provide. Depending upon how education is structured, it could
severely impact what he feels is one of the primary goals of
education. If we structure education the wrong way, we can
encourage polarization, separation, and end up with what you are