More on equity

Last night, I posted on equity between our two school systems and gave a few examples of the disparities that currently exists.

I grew up in an education family. I'm the son of a school teacher and three of my four grandparents were school teachers. To top it off, my only uncle and only aunt are educators.

Because of that upbringing, I believe deeply that we have an obligation to ensure that every child in our county has access to the resources that he or she needs--regardless of whether the child lives in the northern part of the county or the south, whether she's black, white, or latino, and regardless of socio-economic status.

I think it's time we move beyond the divisive debate on merger and focus on the real issue: Are schoolchildren getting the resources they need? If there are gaps, where do they exists and how do we correct problems?

Here's my goal: increase the per pupil spending in the county system until it matches the city schools.


Closing the gap will take years. The gaps wasn't created over night and won't be closed over night either. But we owe it to the schoolchildren to fund both systems adequately.