Dear Editor:
My husband and I were blessed to grow up in two of Missouri's best school districts. Throughout our lives we have enjoyed the benefits that flowed from the excellent educational opportunities offered to us in our youth. These advantages were secured for us by the generosity and foresight of our parents, preceded by generations of parents before them - communities that valued and supported public education. It is the pursuit of these same advantages for our children that inspire our support of Propositions J + C.
I would like to think that supporting quality education with modern facilities and sufficient staffing are priorities shared not only by parents of young children, but by every person who is interested in living in a stable community of educated individuals prepared to attract, and succeed in, high paying, modern jobs. This expectation causes the frustration and confusion I experience when trying to understand the uniformly weak and shortsighted arguments against Propositions J + C.
The common criticisms I've seen against J + C can be summarized as, "We shouldn't fix the overcrowding or hire additional teachers until we address deficiencies in student performance, and we shouldn't approve moving forward with this plan until every conceivable question about every detail has been answered." These critics remind me of two different homeowners: The first, who refuses to replace his roof because his foundation is also failing, and, the second, who doesn't put out the house fire because she's not satisfied with the brand of hose! As with any large challenge, refusing to act until we can address every possible issue is a perfect recipe for failing to ever address any of them. And as any homeowner who's ever faced water in their basement knows, seemingly unrelated problems often have a common cause, and can sometimes be addressed with a single solution. The positive impacts of reduced crowding and additional teachers are evident when we compare districts with those problems to districts without.
We're not Jefferson Citians by birth, but by choice, and all of our children have been born, and will be raised, here, attending our public schools. Comfortable, modern facilities, reasonable student-to-teacher ratios, and supportive investment from the community always improve the odds of student success, the benefits of which redound to the entire community for years and years. For these reasons, we urge our friends and neighbors to support Propositions J + C.