Dumb on education

Shawn Vestal’s rant in the March 30 paper about Washington adults “being pretty dumb about education,” and former superintendent of Spokane’s public schools Gary Livingston’s expressing concern of “skyrocketing tuition on many four year campuses” spoke volumes.

However, David Webb’s letter to the editor the same day, headlined “Learning objectives misguided,” made the most sense.

As a retired university science professor, Webb wrote that it seemed educational standards are developed in a scrutiny-free universe. Children are exposed to grand experiments without timely assessment. He wrote that educational reforms have been a dismal failure and have established a misguided educational elite who are as lost as their students.

The Michael Ramirez cartoon picturing “Obamacare” as a giant sinkhole across the United States could just as easily be labeled “progressive school reform,” including Common Core. One wonders how many of the reformers have taught in the classroom lately.

Most parents want the best education for their children but are tired of experts experimenting on their children. Taxpayer funding is no longer a bottomless pit.

Donna Kuhn

Spokane