Question 7 for Saline School Board Candidates: Do You Believe In Taxpayer Funded Public Education?

As stewards of the school district, do you believe in taxpayer funded public education? Should districts fight the trend toward privatization? Or embrace it?

Patti Tanner

While others have been attacking our schools, I have been in classrooms, lunchrooms and conference rooms for the last 10 years supporting public education. We have a choice now to save our public schools and I wholeheartedly embrace that mission. We need to retain local control and fight outsider attempts to change what we have developed here in Saline.

David Zimmer

All one has to do is to look at our nation’s history and the building of our middle class to see the impact of public education on the success of our nation. That said, today with the constant emergence of new learning approaches and the dynamic changes going on in our nation in how we live, communicate and learn, we must be open to change. For example, for some individuals and communities, on-line learning, charter schools, private schools, parochial schools and home schooling makes sense. As a school district we must always strive to provide the highest quality of education, recognizing that in some cases alternative instructional methods may make sense for the individual.

David Friese

As citizens we have a moral obligation to publicly fund education. As a society we should question the political rationale that short changes our community’s treasures, the students.

I am ardently opposed to the privatization of any and all public services. Tax payer dollars should be used for the public good. Contrary to the claims of many of the proponents of privatizing public services, the negative impact on communities detracts from any short term financial gain. One should also consider, that in many instances these companies are using equipment paid for and maintained by the tax payer. Their primary motive is profit not service.

David Holden

Public Education has been a fixture of American society for a long long time and I have always been supportive of it’s mission to educate our youth.

School Districts should neither fight nor embrace privatization. Private schools whether academic or religious based provide an alternative to the public school system and have a legitimate role within our society providing parental choice in the education of their children. It is my belief that public and private schools can coexist and need not “fight” each other.