Log in

Education

Good education makes for great community

Posted

I couldn’t help but be disappointed by Mortimer Snerd’s published opinion in the Aug. 12 paper. He wants DUSD to “do less with more” and suggests cutting arts, sports and cultural programs as the way to keep property taxes low.

He claims that these “extraneous matters” can be pursued outside of public education or during higher learning. He goes on to complain that “the streets are teeming with crowds of know-nothing young people. They are mostly the product of our public education system.”

I’m not sure how Snerd expects our nation, city or school district to address young people being on the streets or “knowing nothing” without the benefit of enough funds to educate and enrich all of the children within their boundaries. Stripping our public schools of all but the bare minimum won’t result in less poverty or smarter citizens. There are ample studies which prove that involvement in sports, music and the arts contribute to overall academic performance.

Snerd insists that these (“music, the arts, sports, etc.) can be pursued apart from the public school system. If you have means this suggestion, on its surface, might seem to hold weight. Until you realize that going this route leaves a lot of children behind. Poor children, foster children, children of large families … the list goes on. They’d be excluded from music, arts, sports, etc. What would that mean for their education? How would it impact their academic performance? How will that impact society in just a few years?

Perhaps you’re thinking that you don’t owe those children anything. Why should your property taxes pay for underprivileged children to be enriched and uplifted?

Because we are one community. What lifts the least of us lifts us all. Your investment in public education is already paying dividends that you probably aren’t aware of. It will continue to pay out in the years to come.

When you’re old and graying in a nursing home, maybe your caregiver will go the extra mile and bring his trumpet to play for you. When you’re making your way around the grocery store, perhaps the brightly colored chalk art adorning the menus will catch your eye and make you smile. Perhaps you’ll need to be saved from a fire, and the firefighter who comes to your rescue will consider giving up when things get hard, then reach down deep and find an inner strength that she learned to tap into on the track.

As much as you’d like to think that all you have in life is the fruit of your own labor, the reality is that your success is the result of a community effort. Our children’s success depends upon our collective investment in them. They are worth our time, our effort, our resources and, yes, a small adjustment to your property taxes.