<i> To</i> : Public Education Inc. <i> From</i> : S. Sigoloff <i> Re</i> : Saving $4.5 Billion-Plus

News item: Gov. Pete Wilson, calling him “the wizard of corporate turnarounds,” nominates Sanford C. Sigoloff to be interim state superintendent of public instruction.

Team! Today we take a hard look at our newest company, Public Education Inc.--what’s productive, what’s a liability.

I have your reports. Great work, as usual. We’ll turn this outfit around in no time--out of the red, making a profit and issuing dividends to our shareholders, the taxpayers and residents of California.

Let’s start with the glaring liability: seventh and eighth grades. They’re a drag on overall productivity.

These kids aren’t learning anything. Their test scores stink. Insubordination and truancy start then, school violence gets a toehold and experimentation with alcohol and other drugs dissipates these youth. Teen pregnancies end the education of too many young women.

I recommend we sell off those two years of school. I’ve already contacted the big brokerages, and we have bids from Caltrans, agribusiness, forestry and the park service to take as many seventh- and eighth-graders as we can deliver. Let’s get these kids out into the open air--hoeing fields, cutting brush and building trails, cleaning up the highways and holding red flags in construction areas.

Let them burn off those raging hormones, let them contribute to society instead of having a two-year food fight and giggle fest at taxpayers’ expense. Let them experience the real world.

They’ll appreciate school when they return for ninth grade--and that will cut our high school dropout rate.

Parents will love us. Half of these kids will be out of the house for two years and the other half will get home from work every day hungry and too tired to be much of a bother.

I figure we save about $2.3 billion in state funds by eliminating those two years of so-called education. Add to that our 10% finder’s fee for providing 800,000 minimum-wage workers--that generates about $500 million for us in a 36-week work year. Then, we rent out the classroom space at junior high schools to business, volunteer organizations and civic groups for cut rates of 50 cents per square foot per month; we make another $130 million. Ancillary savings of local revenues will redirect $1.5 billion in local taxes into other services. The net gain for government coffers: more than $4.5 billion. Not bad for our first day’s work.

Tomorrow, productivity. It looks like kids are learning in kindergarten everything they need to know. How can we sustain those gains in subsequent years? See you at 8 a.m. sharp!