Saturday, November 19, 2005

Lamar graduate speaks out against Blunt plan


Reed's Spring School District Superintendent Angela Besendorfer, a Lamar High School graduate and former principal in the Carthage R-9 School District, told the Branson Daily News she plans to fight Governor Matt Blunt's plan for a constitutional amendment requiring that 65 cents of every dollar going to education go toward classroom instruction.
According to the article, "Besendorfer said the proposal doesn't include things in the classroom instruction category that she feels should be included, such as library services, counseling and health services, which are critical to student success. She has urged the school board to oppose the proposal."
Not many people are jumping on the governor's bandwagon on this proposal, including Republicans, simply because it is a shortsighted proposal. As a teacher, naturally I am for putting more money into the classroom, but when the proposal considers sports to be part of that 65 percent, but not libraries or school nurses, well, it appears to be a program that is doomed to fail.
The basic idea of putting more money into the classroom and less into administrative costs is laudable, but when you consider that many of those administrative costs are because of the incredible amount of paperwork required by federal and state mandates, that would seem to be the direction in which we should be headed.
Like most con jobs, when something sounds too good to be true, that is generally because it is.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm with her.

Anonymous said...

She didn't speak out against Blunt, but against a proposal supported by the Governor. This is another example of trying to make personalities the issue rather than the substance of the story. It's the kind of bush league writing that made Randy unempoyable in the newspaper business.

Randy said...

Check the post. It specifically indicates she was speaking out against the proposal. Nowhere does it say she is opposing the governor.

Anonymous said...

"Lamar graduate speaks out against Blunt plan" this was the title of the story....where did you think it said she was speaking out against Blunt?

Anonymous said...

Perhaps if the politicians would allot more funding we wouldn't have this problem in the first place? If they fully funded the current foundation formula then there would be more money in the clasroom. Cut other areas first and leave education alone.

Anonymous said...

Well it sure does appear the ole Lamar graduate made sure plenty of funding was alotted to that hard working administration she speaks so strongly of....in the form of a fat raise to her own pocket book from an amazing $98,000/annually to $110,000/annually. Guess the library and nurse will have to wait for their funding.