Charles Fisher Letter To The Editor

Charles Fisher had the following letter in the January 7 Quad City Times. (I am using ..... to mark paragraph breaks.) ""We cannot manage to staff our very complex, highly sophisticated capital structure with what's coming out of our high schools. If we're not going to educate our kids, bring in other people who want to become Americans." These words from Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, show what a catastrophe modern education has become. ..... An estimated 20 percent of the prison population is talented and gifted (or rather cursed), a social tragedy caused solely by the failure of our schools. ..... Illinois already overpays for schools that underperform. Iowa's average starting teacher salary is $ 32,895 a year, while Illinois' is $36,636. Despite the difference, Illinois SAT scores are substantially lower than Iowa. ..... Illinois has the most pension debt of any state __ $25,959 per resident. For the share going to educational workers, Illinois voters are certainly (overly) generous. ..... Against this backdrop, Rock Island County schools are again forcing their way onto the ballot for a sales tax increase. ..... Now is not the time to reward our schools but to dismantle them. Voters should once again deny more money to a failed system on April 7 and reject the local option sales tax."