Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 16, 1990 TAG: 9003152560
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANGELICA D. LLOYD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the last year, I faced the choice of either transferring to Tidewater or finding new employment here in Roanoke. One principal reason that my husband and I chose to stay here was the high quality of the city's public-school administration and School Board.
I am convinced that the professional and volunteer leadership of our school system has the skills and commitment to provide innovative and productive educational opportunities for my children and for the varied student populations existing in this urban system. That leadership's well-considered conclusion that an additional $2.1 million is required to raise the school system's salaries and offerings above the bare minimum should be respected by City Council.
We who argued so vocally and successfully for preserving neighborhood elementary schools already believe that neighborhoods become less desirable and property values decline when such schools are closed. City Council members may trust us to see that keeping neighborhood schools open, despite the obvious inefficiencies of renovating and operating so many different buildings, and providing quality staff and programs at these and the middle and high schools, carry a price tag.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, early 1980s predictions that elderly empty nesters and free-spending, childless yuppies wouldn't support bond issues, property-tax increases and other measures to finance public schools were wrong. Nationally, spending on public primary-school and secondary-school education rose by 24.4 percent, after inflation, between 1980 and 1989.
The WSJ article cited a recent study in Florida, a state with a large retirement community and rapidly growing minority school population, which found no evidence that older persons predictably vote against school bonds. The researchers stated, "Our results directly contradict the `gray peril' hypothesis that says an aging population will oppose local tax increases for programs not directly beneficial to them."
International competition has made Americans realize that industrial strength and education are closely connected. That's why we are seeing our business leaders and more farsighted politicians promote better schools as a key to economic development and prosperity.
City Council members and candidates who make the connection between quality education, on the one hand, and neighborhood preservation, enhancement of real-estate values, the development of a skilled work force that can attract new employers and the resulting broadening of the tax base, on the other, can win the support of Roanoke City's voters. My husband and I certainly are willing to pay an additional $110 a year in property taxes to see these goals realized because we can make no other investment for this amount that has such high potential return for ourselves and our children.
by CNB