William Marvel: Blank-Check "Education"

In editorializing on public education, at least in Conway and within SAU 9, I always have trouble finding sufficiently pejorative synonyms for words such as "waste" and "squander." That difficulty has intensified in the past couple of years, and it becomes more aggravating as all that spending and all those synonyms lead to increasingly dismal scholastic results. Limited vocabulary options force frequent repetition, which apparently induces a tone-deafness to the underlying complaint about excessive spending, at least within our school board and the SAU 9 Board.

Last month, Conway's town manager told the Municipal Budget Committee that when he hires a new employee, he does so at an entry-level wage for that position. That may seem too logical a practice to deserve notice, but it's apparently a foreign concept to the school board members of the various towns that belong to SAU 9 — as became obvious two summers ago, during the clown-show search for a new superintendent.