Education:

You pay for it, about half a billion dollars per year, but what do you get for your money? Wichita has a dropout rate of almost 30%, over twice the state average.
We can do better.

I believe in good public education. We need to study the structures, teaching systems and subjects we are going to support and how much it should cost. Consider what it will cost if we do not continually update our educational system to meet the needs of a changing world.

Citizens today question our system of public education. We all have heard the stories of disruptive students and teachers who are trying to deliver instruction to students who are not interested in learning the subject. The fear of being sued has caused an entire breakdown of authority and discipline within our school systems and that must be changed.

I believe students have the right to learn and become successful adults, not be held back by those who do not want to learn. According to a study by Project READ, one-third of all juvenile offenders read below the fourth-grade level. The Center on Crime, Communities and Culture reported approximately 19% of adult inmates were completely illiterate, and 40% were functionally illiterate. We must find a way to educate our youth today so they do not become one of these statistics later.

We currently spend 17 million dollars bussing kids across town for various reasons. Some schools undermine that expense and effort by doing little to remove the misbehaving students from a classroom where most students really want to learn. This is not an issue of funding education, but an issue of how lives are wasted with poor management.  The policy makers are not willing to make the hard decisions about discipline and what is necessary to educate students for the next level of their life. Some parents should be demanding that schools give an education that will help their child become a fully functioning adult.

School Board elections are very important! Anyone who has influence on the updating of school programs should be carefully considered before voting for them.

As your school board member, I will strive to bring back the accountability and discipline to our schools so our children can learn and be successful in a good learning environment. I will encourage USD 259 to create an alternative learning environment where disruptive students can also learn and gain the skills to be productive members of society.

The Coming Labor Shortage

The oldest of the baby boom generation will reach age 65 in 2010. Members of this generation have begun to retire and their retirement rate will increase over the next 20 years. The generation replacing the baby boomer retirees is not large enough to support the historic job growth rate in the United States. Therefore, there will be a US workforce shortage for the next 20 years. This is particularly true for skilled workers.

The WSU "Center of Economic Development and Business Research" has forecast that the Wichita demand for labor would support the addition of more than 170,000 jobs over the next 30 years or 5,667 per year. However, they forecast the supply of labor, based on current trends and conditions, will only support the addition of 50,000 jobs or 1,667 jobs per year.