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Win the game, lose the race

Interesting all the millions that Spokane School District 81 has been spending on updating athletic facilities in Spokane, and district officials dealing with a $13.1 million deficit. Then I wondered how many millions more go toward supporting all these extracurricular activities.

You would guess that education budgets are not at all depressed when we can continue to spend millions more on “fun and games.” It would be interesting to see the complete costs of all these programs compared to the cuts in academics.

While our nation is facing a depression and there is a serious lack of academic achievement, we continue to ignore this vacuum. No problem, China and India will continue to fill the world’s need in academic excellence and technical expertise. All that American children need to learn is fun, games and flipping hamburgers.

I guess this is what America exceptionalism is all about. America had a good run for 200 years, and now it’s time for other nations to take the lead.

Perhaps it is time to introduce new course studies in our schools: examining the poverty, suffering, deaths, disease and survival in Third World nations. It seems that this is our destiny for future generations.

Allan LeTourneau

Spokane



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