Experience shows it takes more than money to improve education. It takes concerned parents or guardians, first and foremost, at home; knowledgeable people who care in schools; and a limited bureaucracy that allows principals and teachers to innovate while holding them accountable.
If the school board really believes in neighborhood schools, the central office needs to keep good-preforming principles in place for more than two years and provide them with more autonomy with accountability. Teachers aren’t leaving because of salary levels, they’ll tell you it’s because of the work environment.
The Hamilton County School Board and it’s UnifiEd puppet masters want to increase the HCS budget by $53 million - an increase of 13.4 percent in one year. That’s a pretty ambitious spending plan for any organization, much less an educational establishment that has lost a lot of public trust over the past 20 years. That will force the county to increase property taxes for the second time since the 10 percent property tax increase in 2017.
The school board’s own numbers show that the natural expected growth of local and state revenues of $18 million will accommodate most of the planned growth in school staffing in new special education, elementary, middle and high school teachers. The schools should focus on that first before asking for a new UnifiEd tax increase.
Nancy Patty
Hixson