June 08, 2011 at 1:10 PM

By Richard Calkins

In the May 29, 2011,  Sunday Star, Kimberlee Kelly opined that private schools, such as St. Peter and Paul’s Schools (SPPS), provide a better educational experience compared with Talbot County Public Schools (TCPS).   Unsurprisingly, she offers no evidence for this claim. 

The demographically homogeneous SPPS charges $10,000 annually for high school tuition, effectively eliminating 35 percent  of students in Talbot County who live below the poverty level, and many more above.  The TCPS, with nearly 30 percent minority students, is required to educate all students.  And the public schools do a bang-up job, with 87 percent  of their 2010 graduates attending 2-4 year colleges or technical schools.  For challenging programs, the two public high schools were named in the top 5% nationwide by Newsweek magazine.

In the May 27 Star Democrat,  George Tulloch gripes that 44 percent of TCPS employees are not teachers.  Students must get to and from schools safely (bus drivers and mechanics), be fed (TCPS cafeteria workers served 300,000 meals to poor children in 2010), be cared for (health staff tended to 44,000 sick children), learn comfortably (maintenance staff ensures buildings have heat & A/C), have clean classrooms (custodial staff), and get home safely (crossing guards). 

 Not content to cut the TCPS budget by nearly $2 million, the myopic zealotry among supporters of these cuts now want to dictate where cuts should be made.  Laptops, in their view, are excessive, and should be eliminated.  Evidently wanting to prepare students for the 1990’s, their contempt for public schools and disrespect for TCPS students and their futures is breathtaking. 

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