LK>But will more money really improve an education *standard*?
The Federal Government does a report card every year on how the various
states and territories are doing educationally, both in terms of money
spent per kid; and results on standardized acheivement tests.  There is
almost no correlation between the two.
LK>That's outrageous in a nation which should constantly strive to
  >improve its education system. Here, like on the U.S. Mainland, we
  >allocate more funds for building more prisons and jails with fancy
  >recreational and dining facilities than we do for schools. Our
  >criminals live in much better conditions in a jail than children see
  >in any local classroom. There are better libraries in our local
  >prisons than in our schools - reality check time! That's mind-
  >boggling; that had to be *allowed* to happen. And it's time to
  >stop it.
That's true here too.  As a matter of fact, for the last three years,
our local elementary school has flunked the state buildings code.  It
badly needs repairs.  There's no money to repair it, but they built a
new county jail not that long ago.  It's a very nice jail, too.  I've
been inside it, although I haven't actually been in any of the cells, so
I can't speak for them.  So our six year olds are going to a school with
a leaky roof; and inadequate cooling and heating; while our prisoners
live in a lovely air conditioned building.  They built the new jail,
because the old jail flunked a state buildings code, so the state gave
us some money to build a new one.  You can't have prisoners in
delapidated conditions.  But the state won't help us find the money to
build a new school. And since we are in a poor farming area, finding
that money is *not* an easy task.   If we don't find it in the next two
years, the state will close our elementary school, which will mean
packing the kids into middle school and high school classrooms, somehow
or other.  It's very frustrating.
                  Sondra
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