May 16, 2003

Four Days Until 26-48

Today's Portland Tribune has yet another look at John Lekas and his slate of school board candidates:

The slate has proposed a complete restructuring of how the Portland school district distributes its money to schools. The candidates say that would save taxpayers from a school tax increase.

Investment professional and school board candidate John Lekas leads the slate of candidates. He calls his financing plan "a very serious attempt both fiscally and scholastically to decentralize those schools and to give control of those schools back to the neighborhoods and the communities they're in."

Not everyone is so complimentary.

School board candidate Richard Garrett, a retiring Portland teacher and former head of the Portland teachers union, calls the plan "preposterous," "goofy" and "probably illegal."

The article also reiterates the matter (rasied in yesterday's Oregonian) of the slate seemingly escaping public questioing of their "9-10-11" plan, as well as explaining how their pronouncements of how much money is available are just wrong, and how their plan to distribute that money probabaly violates the law.

Meanwhile, The Oregonian compares the fate of schools under both passage and failure of Measure 26-48:

The average class could swell to 33 students -- or it could shrink back to where it was last year at about 27 students.

Sports programs could shrivel, losing coaches, junior varsities and entire sports -- or they could continue unscathed.

Students could be issued up-to-date textbooks -- or handed seven- and eight-year-old books to use for another year.

Summer school, Outdoor School, art classes and language immersion could hang on -- or disappear.

To repeat myself: Drop off your ballots before 8:00 PM Tuesday, May 20.

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