Letter: Flags are not what our schools need

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

The Clark County School District continues to cry crocodile tears about the lack of proper funding and the need for more teachers. In the meantime it continues to prove that it is best at squandering money on superfluous, mundane and meaningless programs.

Our teachers must spend their own money to supplement classroom materials and use outdated, worn-out texts. In the meantime the overpaid School District administrators at Fort Fumble on Flamingo come up with a harebrained plan to fly flags promoting mediocrity at our schools.

Once again the district is attempting to use smoke and mirrors to blind the public to the fact that excellence in the classroom is not the real priority of the administration. For years the central administration has tried to convince the public that all that can be done is being done to improve school instruction. Flying flags of excellence over schools will be another useless, money-wasting scheme to cover up the fact that many of our schools are failing because of a lack of administrative and educational leadership.

The School District needs to put its money in classroom instruction, not on outside flags! It needs to return to the philosophy of allowing and fully supporting teachers in establishing standards of excellence. It also needs to design and implement creative and innovative curricula that will promote and stimulate student achievement and excellence.

Above all, it needs to allow teachers to teach and not merely follow scripted, unimaginative lockstep curricula that do not allow for initiative and creativity on the part of teachers or students.

Virgil A. Sestini, Las Vegas