More bureaucrats won’t aid schools

Friday, April 23, 2004 | 8:51 a.m.

How long would the public blissfully ignore the situation if the fire department chief announced that there was no money to buy high-priced water to fight fires, but that he was going to hire yet another expensive layer of assistant chiefs to help organize the fire stations? Not long!

Yet this is the situation that our empire-building school superintendent has sold to the majority of the School Board, who should have known better. Don't imagine that these highly-paid positions will stand by themselves. These new administrators will need assistants, secretaries, consultants, clerks, researchers, gofers -- and anyone else they can think of to enhance their own importance, all paid for with money that should be going to classrooms.

More layers of administrators in an already top-heavy district are not going to help children learn to read, do math or paint a picture. More teachers and smaller classes would help children master these skills.

JANE BURROUGH

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