Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.
School Board member Carolyn Edwards has a new agenda, mandatory testing for all Advanced Placement students. Isn’t this akin to arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Last time I checked, our state was nearly at the bottom of the list for per-student funding. Thanks to the budget crisis, we may well be at the bottom now.
Instead of focusing on that, Edwards is concerned that 30 percent of AP students opt out of the testing. That means 70 percent of the students do take the tests.
What Edwards is pushing for is another unfunded mandate for the School District. Just what school administrators need when they already face rising numbers of students who do not speak English, or do not even have homes.
But wait! Let’s not worry about the funding for this mandate; we’ll let the parents pay for the testing. Perhaps Edwards hasn’t noticed, but our country is in financial free fall. Parents are losing jobs, facing foreclosure, wondering how to handle rising prices on shrinking paychecks.
I thought Edwards was alone in her deck-chair arranging, but I see a Las Vegas Sun editorial has come out in favor of this ill-timed proposal. I especially appreciated the ending sentence: “If the board adopts it ... it should find a way to make it affordable for families with financial hardships.” That would be all families.
No more unfunded mandates! Once this district is fully funded, turn your attention to the deck chairs.
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