School Budget Plan
Here is a two-part plan to find the needed $21-million additional reduction in the city schools’ budget. Teachers and parents would strike a bargain, each helping to relieve the problem.
Teachers would accept a reasonable cut in pay. This would be combined with a small increase in class size (one which would likely dissipate).
Parents would be put on notice that students must come to school willing to learn. None of the normal skylarking, defiance to teachers, tardiness, unfinished homework, fighting at school, etc., would be tolerated. Students who exhibited such behavior would be expelled--posthaste.
The school budget crunch thus could be turned into a blessing in disguise. Schools finally might become places for serious and high academic standards. This much-needed condition then could be maintained when teacher salaries came back to their normal levels.
PATRICK GROFF, San Diego
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