My Bucket List

To the Editor:

Tomorrow I will turn 88 years old and with it I can see the edge of the finality looming in the haze ahead. Those who have seen my letters to The Bee know my criticism of the present educational system and the teachers’ unions. Some of you may wonder whether I hate all teachers, education, or both. The opposite is true.

I consider education of our youth the most important legacy which we can leave them, and it is exactly for that reason that I must continue my effort.

There are, as I see it, two issues we must address if we are to succeed in providing world-quality education.

First, we must bring the cost of education down. As long as a powerful union racks up the cost to infinitum by its exorbitant demands there can be no hope. This is also true at the college level. We must not saddle our youth with a $100,000 or more debt by the time they graduate and at the same time pay our police chief at UConn a $250,000 salary. The roots of this problem is in politics and I have nothing but contempt for those of our politicians who have for political advantages allowed unlimited collective bargaining for public employees. We have been reaping the curse of these decisions ever since, and it will only end when the damage becomes visible to the general electorate.

At present, we the general public are at the mercy of these unions who in effect hold a monopoly in defiance of state and federal laws.

Have we not learned the bitter lesson that more and more money does not buy a better education, at least as long as tenure exists and our education leaders cannot week out the wheat from the chaff?

The second issue is to bring education at the high school level into the 21st Century. For myself this means conducting a study for the most efficient and most productive system even if we must invent it. We are not newcomers to fresh ideas. We should shop around for new ideas and discuss these at the Board of Education and principal level until a consensus is reached what our new system should look like based in part on comparisons of other methods, including the Europeans and Japan.

We must shake off these shackles which have restrained our system for so long. When I hear suggestions for more teachers and smaller classes, I see red. This is a self-serving egotistical answer. A better choice is elimination of the waste and replacement by competent teachers and a curriculum meeting the vita needs for an education of the 21st Century.

Oscar Berendsohn

34 Appleblossom Lane, Newtown                                  June 26, 2012