Home of Today's Common Sense

Published Brownsville Herald 7/6/2003
I read the letter from Randy Dunn of the Board of Trustees, that was published in the Brownsville Herald on June 1. He mentions much finger pointing and rumors that undermine the good things going on in the school district. It would appear that many of the fingers are indeed pointing in the right direction.
My daughter is a product of BISD and graduated from Hanna and was prepared to successfully complete a rigorous program at the prestigious Trinity University in San Antonio. Her experience has been repeated time and time again as her friends went to other places like Harvard and also did well. The educational system can be proud but it is more than that; it is a partnership with the faculty and the school that brings success. More money only improves the good programs and initiatives it does not make stars out of dung.
Mr. Dunn said nothing about what specific actions would be taken to improve the system using the Strayhorn Report as a guide.
References to appointing coordinators and committees to study, analyze and consider the issue were made. The majority of the document was devoted to justifying why the jobs of the friends, relatives and contributors of the Board and Trustees and BISD bosses were to be retained in positions as administrators that are not needed. Why could not some of them be returned to the classroom to fill the 44 plus teacher positions that were left vacant and not dealt with when approximately 55 foreign teachers were contracted with and documented for immigration purposes but were rejected when they arrived in the U.S. only 19 were retained. Other schools in El Paso and Dallas grabbed these highly trained folks up. We lost out then, as good experienced teachers are hard to find today.
The Herald accurately stated in their rebuttal on June 8 that BISD is more interested in protecting friends jobs than providing a better education. In this time of a reduced increase in Federal and State funding the $5.2 million that is being misspent should be used to pay higher salaries to experienced teachers, to retain them, hire more teachers and properly plan and balance the classroom loads so that a maximum of 20 students would be in a classroom, transfer some administrative aids to support the teachers in recordkeeping so that they can teach rather than report on how they would if they had time, and provide for supplies for teachers to use so that they don’t have to spend their own money (now so wide spread it is recognized by a tax credit). The time for the Board to do something positive is now..
We in the community are responsible for the education of our children the government can only help.