2 More Views on Federal School Funds

* While your paper fills its pages with letters from those who support the federal government sending money to Ventura County for the “School-to-Work” system, I want readers to know that there are many voters who oppose this kind of federal spending and federal system.

Thank goodness the Ventura County school board is through rubber-stamping every new education program that comes along. Thank goodness there are three enlightened board members who realize that the way to improve education isn’t always through a new, top-heavy, multimillion-dollar program paid for by our taxes. How can we get rid of the federal Department of Education if we become dependent on their funds?

I applaud the courage of Marty Bates, Angela Miller and Wendy Larner, who have learned to “just say no” to the entrenched education establishment by voting to reject sending this grant proposal to Washington. They certainly did their homework and discovered that the purpose of the millions of dollars in School-to-Work grants are to hire more bureaucrats, more educators, more counselors, more secretaries. And surely they discovered the meticulous database plan to keep track of students, employers, salaries and job openings. And I am also sure that these three wise board members knew the money would stop coming in five years or less--much to the horror of those scores of new education employees whose very jobs would be dependent upon receiving Washington’s weekly paychecks.

COLEEN ARY

Simi Valley

Ary is the chairman of Citizens for Truth in Education.

* Once again the extremist right-wing majority on the Ventura County Board of Education has sounded the halloo: “The Feds are coming! The Feds are coming!”

Paranoia is rampant in the “no” votes cast by Trustees Wendy Larner, Marty Bates and Angela Miller, turning away a $2.5-million grant request for vocational studies simply because these are federal funds (i.e., our own tax dollars returning from D.C.). Never mind that the local School-to-Work program is sponsored and designed by a host of local colleges and schools, in partnership with local business.

Meanwhile, the real business of this board languishes. Now the creative consortium of School-to-Work educators and business people must shop around the county for a grant sponsor, hoping their high-ranking position in the $2.5-million grant competition has not been endangered by these ridiculous challenges and delays.

In Vista, Calif., board members of the same stripe also viewed federal funds as tainted, rejecting $400,000 to provide free or low-cost school breakfasts and lunches for poor students. These religious-right board members succeeded in implanting abstinence-only sex education and creationism-as-science into the Vista schools curriculum.

Next election, they were turned down or recalled.

Listen up Trustees Larner, Miller, Bates. It could also happen here. Notice the increasingly wall-to-wall crowds at board meetings. Hear the moans of parents and educators as you hack off opportunities for school growth. Read the public in print: These are your constituents speaking.

We “arch-moderates” do not share your view that our own U.S. government is the Evil Empire. We simply believe School-to-Work is a necessary program to avoid raising a generation of Kato Kaelins, lifelong house guests on the national economy.

LAURA PECK

Ventura