Cutbacks in Education Serve to Stunt the Future of America

Re “Smith Offers Millions to Water Districts, UCI” (April 24): I applaud Joan Irvine Smith’s plan to fund badly needed environmental water supply and biomedical research in our county.

However, with our country already graduating too many lawyers and the fact that UC Irvine does not have a law school, I opine that the $1 million she intends for an endowed chair for the law school may be better spent on our local school system.

The recent reduction in school funding has further eroded our school system to the point that our schools are already extracting the last bit of the marrow from the bone of education to meet the students’ needs. Our already-underpaid teachers are simply overwhelmed by the increasing demands placed on them to serve as educators as well as substitute parents, even while their teaching assistants are being dismissed due to a lack of funds.

Certainly, a $1-million donation will not cure the ills caused by the tens of millions of dollars cut from the school budget, but it will at least give our teachers some moral support in this stressful period.

I had thought of donating at least that amount to provide for annual awards to a few outstanding teachers in our county had I won the big Lotto. Since I didn’t, I decided to donate 29 cents for postage on this letter instead.

Incidentally, I cannot understand why anyone would need to win a Lotto prize of $120 million. Shouldn’t the Lotto formula be revised to give a larger piece of the pie, earmarked for special projects, to our financially strapped school system when the prize exceeds a certain dollar amount, say $50 million?

DR. JOHN T. CHIU, Corona del Mar