I know many scream about their school taxes but if they would check, our school costs are one of the lowest per pupil in the county and our schools are one of the best.

I must give credit to Mr Rehm and Mr Sotland for doing a good job even though things are so tough. Let us all face it the number one resource in any community is the children and their education. We must all sacrifice whatever we can to insure our schools keep up even with these devastating state cut backs.

I have read that New York, which spends the most per student of any state in the country (#14,884, 2005-2006 Census Bureau figures) and Utah, which spends the least ($5,437) Key test scores for these states:
Grde4 Math NY-238 Utah-239
Grd4 Reading NY-223 Utah-221
GRd8 Math NY-280 Utah-279
Grd8 Reading NY-265 Utah-262
The average for the U.S. in leach category are 237, 217, 278 and 260 Both states exceed the average. Yes, NY slightly beats Utah in three out of four categories but Utah still scores above the U.S. average.If it was about the money, then places like New York and New Jersey(the two highest spending states) should have test scores well above those of students in Utah and Idaho(two lowest spending states). But they don't. Why? Because it's not that schools don't have enough money, it's that they're forced by politicians, lobbyists, and special interests to spend it in ways that don't further their primary goals. We are not getting our money's worth! Cut back, tighten your belts like we taxpayers are having to do and quit strangling us! Bill Powell

Bill,

You are so right and another thing, how is it we are spending $981,300 a year on our "library". Is this another jobs program gone awry. That is the equivalent of purchasing 1962 laptops a year every year. Imagine if our High School kids had laptops and our teachers had "smartboards", this would be a good use of money. The best prep schools in America are doing exactly that, arming their students with the best technology. Time to revisit the library as to its relevency, especially in light of the digital age that we are living in.

Mr. Wilkinson,

There are many trusted sites on the internet where scholars, researchers and acamedics go to for their information gathering. Here are few that I seriously doubt you will dispute:

JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/organization/index.jsp

This is digital archive for scholars, the University of Chicago and many other notably Universities participate in this.
The Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/index.html I don't think you are going to question the validity of their sources.

ERIC: the education resources information center, they have 1.3 million bibliographic million records: http://www.eric.ed.gov/

The list goes on and I would be happy to supply you with a whole list of urls for trusted scholarly sites. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, I never made mention of it and wouldn't rely on it either. With regards to the relevency of the library, I meant the Cornwall library, not all libraries. You even make my case for me by you utilizing the internet in ordering your book online. You were able to find the book that you wanted and have the ability to order that book without even leaving your home. We don't need to spend close to $1 million a year to facilitate the example I just gave of you ordering a book online. A library kiosk would be more suitable, where you would go and pickup books that you ordered or maybe something along the lines of a netflix for books. The point is that our school system has to decide about keeping teachers or letting them go due to budget constraints. Might the library poosibly be a place to look for that money? I think so.

Mr. Malone
I agree with you wholeheartedly about the library. The library as we know it is a dinosaur. Your idea of a kiosk is a great idea. The money that could be saved would be considerable I am sure. And the money that is now spent could be used much more wisely by the school board. I have felt that since the new library was shoved down our throats my money has been wasted since I never use the library and can get everything I need and much much more from the internet. But I am sure the library lovers will be up in arms about this and scream to high heaven.