Editor, The Smithfield Times:

I was rather disturbed and puzzled when I chanced upon a story in the Suffolk News-Herald that reported on a principal who was quitting to work for Isle of Wight County Schools. Not because of the change of employers, but the position she was accepting.

Director of secondary education? I had to stop for a second. Exactly what does that even mean? 

Obviously, it’s not a teaching role. Hmm … it has to be a huge step up in salary to make her quit as a principal, right? Well, the high schools already have principals, so why do they need a bureaucratic job to oversee principals? Isn’t that called the assistant superintendent? Isn’t there also a superintendent?

This smacks of more waste, fraud and abuse within government that we keep hearing about. Today, the test scores of schools in the United States are among the lowest ever, and yet America’s per-pupil spending ranks among the highest on earth!

Now I hear that the Isle of Wight School Board has asked for another huge increase in funding from the county. Why? So they can create more do-nothing, wasteful spending on bureaucratic jobs? The school buses can’t even arrive on time!

There’s already too much bloated waste at the top of the school system. It’s time to stop all this nonsensical red-tape, pork-barrel spending. The waste of taxpayer dollars is so thick it could clog the proverbial septic tank. We need fewer snouts at the pig trough, a.k.a taxpayers’ wallets. 

 

David R. Lyons

Carrollton