Last night while attending my son’s T-ball practice, I heard some Ellsworth parents complaining that the city council had voted to cut the school budget. The truth is the council increased the school budget by $600,000.

School bureaucrats and teacher unions play a game. The school committee proposes a fat budget this year with an increase of nearly $1 million. Then, when the council votes to fund the budget, any amount under the proposal is reported as a cut.

Each year we send them more money, and each year public school students struggle with reading, math, history, science and other core subjects.

Reform won’t come from more money, only better instruction. The Ellsworth school system will spend $6,432 per student next year. I wonder how parents would educate their children if that $6,432 were sent directly to them? A family with two children might use the $12,864 to send their children to a private school. Some mothers could quit work and teach their children at home. Others might organize a parent-controlled charter school.

True reform is not more money, new tests or different standards. It is getting the money back into the hands of the parents and out of the pockets of the bureaucrats. Charla Bansley Ellsworth