Stop the Beg-A-Thons

Why does the Meridian School District always expect kids to go door-to-door begging for more money for their schools? The State Department of Education reported that the district charged taxpayers $8,690 per student to attend their schools last year, but I guess this isn’t enough. These beg-a-thons perpetuate the myth that public schools are under-funded. Each student is expected to sell $100 worth of stuff, of which the school gets to keep $40. For students who are too busy doing homework, parents are expected to make a $40 “donation.”

I thought that the lottery was supposed to solve the under-funding crisis? Fat chance. We recently learned that 34 of the district’s 46 schools (78 percent) failed to make adequate progress. Is there any product or service that you could continue to use if it had such a dismal performance record? It looks like teachers should be spending more time teaching and less time expecting kids to shakedown the neighborhood for them. It’s easy to understand why so many parents feel that their kids are being held hostage at these costly low-performing schools.

Here’s a great offer to the Meridian School District: Let me be responsible for the education of my kids. Just give me half of the $8,690 that you spend and I’ll let you keep the other half. You get $4,345 and have one less kid to worry about. Furthermore, I promise not to call it ransom money. In the mean time stop expecting my kids to beg for you.