An old friend and ally challenges my claims

In an email titled “Honest Abe” a good friend asks me a fair question.

Harry,
I know you are citing 50 students in a classroom. And that may be the case for some, but how many classes really are that crowded?

I would hate the voting public to be guilted to yes vote the levy based on fear. Just too similar to Dixon & Co. using the DNT to report that there were dilapidated, unsafe schools and we ended up with the Red Plan.

My Reply:

Re: Honest Abe,

Its an obvious exaggeration. I’ve been waiting to see if someone from the district would call me out on it. The classrooms are occasionally in their 40s. A choir member in my church has 39 algebra kids and a woman who called said there were 40 kids in a grandson’s class. The number 40 has shown up repeatedly in letters to the editor.

I’ve had in mind the potential for class sizes when I talk about 50 kids. They may not be 50 now but what happens when the reserve runs out, which it will, and the existing levy fails. Then we move a lot closer to that number. The district is in a death spiral. Add a new high school for Edison and its curtains.

As long as I’m speaking theoretically I can live with my dire predictions. I made them four years ago and so far I haven’t been that far off.

Abe said the nation couldn’t stand half free and half slave. He could have been wrong and was until LBJ passed all those civil rights bills in the 1960’s. It took 100 years for his profecy to come true. Mine won’t take that long if voters are so mad that they turn their half billion dollar schools into abandoned and derelict buildings. I want them to be rational when they vote, not just punitive.

Harry

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone

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