By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
ESPLOST is good if district spends wisely
lettereditor

Editor,

As Courier readers know, I am against most taxes. But in the case of the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or ESPLOST, I support it. I just hope the Liberty County School System spends the money more wisely than the county commissioners spend SPLOST.

Almost half of the ESPLOST money is spent for technology, and this is a technological world. I just wish the district would work to increase the math proficiency, which is only at 47 percent. A computer or calculator just does not replace the mind when it comes to math.

In today’s high-tech environment, it is very difficult finding a job unless you are proficient in math. Fast-food employees might have a cash register to tell them what change to return to the customer, but that doesn’t happen in an industrial business.
I am also wary of a prekindergarten program, which I believe is nothing more than a babysitting program. Tests have shown pre-K and kindergarten students will be equivalent to a non-kindergarten student by third grade. My generation never went to kindergarten, and we conceived the technology boom. We didn’t even have overhead projectors back then.

I would also like to see the schools use some of this money for history books, as the students know very little of history — at least none of the ones that I talked to. If you watch “Watters’ World,” you can see how ignorant people are of history and current events. Jesse Watters is an interviewer at Fox News.

I would like to see the Liberty County students be the best in the state. They can be if the district wisely uses the ESPLOST funds.

Len Calderone
Midway

Sign up for our e-newsletters