BCT Editorial – 9/25/06

This page was last updated on September 25, 2006.

Pound foolish; Editorial; Beaver County Times; September 25, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Savings too small to justify Ambridge Area board move to shortchange children

“Parents of children who attend State Street Elementary School in Baden are upset, and rightly so, over the Ambridge Area School Board’s short-sighted penny pinching.

“When a sixth-grade teacher retired last year, the board didn’t replace her. As a result, the two fifth- and two sixth-grade classes at the Baden school have three full-time teachers among them. The vacant full-time position (for instruction and homeroom) in fifth-grade was farmed out to the band and music teacher, who now also teaches science, and an instructor who teaches half-day.”

[RWC] I don’t see the problem. When I was in grade school during the late 1950s and 1960s, except for 7^th grade, our “homeroom” teacher was our only teacher. For example, Sister Vincent de Paul taught all of our 5^th grade subjects (math, science, geography, English, music, religion, et cetera).

“Board President Bernard Logan said the district saved about $18,000 when it didn’t hire a replacement.

“In the realm of real budget numbers, $18,000 is little more than a rounding error. According to the district’s Web site, the Ambridge Area has a $34,207,816 budget for the 2006-07 school year. The $18,000 in savings represents a percentage so small as to be almost infinitesimal. (Divide $18,000 by $34,207,816. It comes out to 0.0526 percent. That ratio is so small that most handheld calculators can’t do that math.)”

[RWC] Where does the Times buy its “handheld calculators?” I remember the first handheld calculators of the early 1970s, and as an undergraduate assistant I had to remind students to stick with significant digits and not to give answers with a zillion digits to the right of the decimal point.

This is an example of the editorial author reaching to make a point.

“Granted, small efficiencies can add up to big savings, and that argument can be used to justify the board’s decisions to eliminate after-school activities buses and not to hire police officers to patrol home football games.”

[RWC] Given the all too common behavior at basketball and football games, I’d brand not having police officers at home games as “pound foolish.”

“But if ever there was a case of being penny wise and pound foolish educationally, it’s taking place at State Street Elementary School. The children deserve better from this board.”

[RWC] In case you missed it, the editorial never described how the Ambridge students are going to be shortchanged.

If the Times could credibly call into question the qualifications of “the band and music teacher” and the “instructor who teaches half-day” to teach the required subjects, it would have an argument. The editorial, however, never asserts the teachers are unqualified. As a result, how can the Times claim the students will be shortchanged?