Businesses that do not perform adequately go "out of business," but schools that are inefficient do not. Some people believe that the remedy for this inability to perform is throwing money at the problem. That is what we have been doing in Garden City for the past several years.

Our school budgets have been increasing at rates far above the cost of inflation, especially during the tenure of the present superintendent.

Previous boards have applied brakes to runaway increases in budgets; the last two boards have not.

It is my recollection that the only area where an attempt was made to stop the rate of growth was in the overtime budget. Even that effort may not have borne substantial fruit.

What schools need is enduring, visionary leadership to address the challenges of public education today, with accountability. Superintendents who constantly turn to consultants to solve or alleviate the challenges are not doing their jobs. The superintendents are supposed to be the experts. This is the reason they are hired.

To express concern about the new standards when the passing grade is 55 percent is a clear indication of how far the standards have been allowed to fall.

A part of the problem is administrators who "sweep problems under the rug." Another part of the problem is the teachers who either are incompetent or have permitted themselves to be overwhelmed by undue pressure. Students who are properly taught and whose expectations are kept high are successful. Students who are taught self-esteem at the expense of the basics are being imbued with one of the disproved philosophies of our current educational system.

Finally, there is no substitute for superintendents, administrators, principals and assistant principals visiting classrooms on a regular basis, especially for those teachers that they consider weak or in need of help.

From conversations I have had with parents, I know that such teachers exist, at least in the opinion of some of the parents; they believe that such teachers are being protected by the principals and perhaps even administrators.

As a former deputy commandant of an army USAR school, I know that visiting classrooms on a regular basis greatly improves the performance and permits the "weeding out" of weak teachers.

P.S. Had I not been teaching, I would have attended the superintendent search meeting. Perhaps we can have a repeat. We had several repeats for the bond issue. The search and selection of a new superintendent is in my opinion more important than the bond issue.