Chattanooga and Hamilton County is not the only school system having financial difficulties. State and local communities all over the country are coping with the worst budget shortfalls since World War II, forcing lay offs and cutting out certain important educational features such as sports, teachers, and support staff.

In many districts across America, layoffs of teachers and inability to buy new school books and technology, are being forced, and instruction time is being cut from the curriculum. Head Start slots have been eliminated in some states and thousands fewer children are being served.

Much of what has gone wrong can be laid at the door of the President's budget in the No Child Left Behind Act. He is helping to make it necessary to cut high quality teachers, manageable class sizes and aftershcool programs. To make a long story short, the President is not fulfilling his promise to Leave No Child Behind. By not funding on the level that he promised, thousands of children in school districts around America will have fewer resources this year than last year. The No child Left Behind Act is a failed promise.

The President's budget is $9.4 billion less than he agreed to when he signed the No Child Left Behind Act. He also is wiping out funding for 38 existing education programs and other critical programs.

Education needs more than big promises and oratory-it requires a financial committment.

As for the stance of Curtis Adams, I think he is right. If taxes are raised, older local residents will have a harder time than ever paying their home taxes. Many have to borrow the money yearly and spend the next year paying back what they borrowed to keep their homes. From what I hear and see, Mr. Adams' position is the correct one.

When I was teaching in a public school, one day some men came into my class room and said they were going to build me some science cabinets. I asked them why, since I had a cabinet large enough to hold all of my science experiments and equipment. They said the government was providing the money and that it had been applied for and was going to be used. So they built beautiful cabinets the entire length of the back wall of my room. They told me that just the hardware for the cabinets would cost over $500. When the cabinets were completed, the principal used the cabinets to store used textbooks.

The irony of this story is that the school in which I was teaching was condemned and abandoned a year or two later and those expensive science cabinets with their fine hardware were never used for science or anything else. I can vouch for the fact that a lot of money is wasted in schools and what the citizenry should do is to make it their business to go into the schools and see how appropriated money is actually spent, and while they are there, they can try to learn why so many young people come out of the schools uneducated.

Mildred Perry Miller
Millermaj@aol.com