Education’s big need is for more local control

The Nov. 28 guest column by Dwight Watson, “A collaborative approach for a complete education,” considered pre-K through postsecondary education and stressed the need for a complete alignment of education from cradle to grave. The dean of the College of Education at the University of Northern Iowa believes we need to engage our pre-K through 12 partners (that is, local superintendents and principles) in collaborative endeavors that are reciprocal, intentional and sustainable.

In other words, have a monolithic, single point of view toward education, which amounts to creating a single source of power dictating to the public what and how their children are taught. Local school boards would have little control of K-12 education, which would be relegated to a bureaucracy of school administrators.

What education really needs is to have local control of the schools via the local school board and get academics back in the classroom and get politics out. Our schools need to get back to basics: reading, writing, science, mathematics, U.S. history and arts. It just takes a classroom with teacher, students, textbooks and respect/discipline.

Real education is not prohibitively expensive but today we are pouring taxpayers' money down an educational rat hole by being controlled by greedy bureaucrats spinning a yarn of “we do it for the children.”

Gary C. Young

Cedar Rapids