A Nov. 18 story reported “Tough options for lawmakers on class sizes: Money to pay for initiative’s reductions is scarce.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is no documented benefit to the expense of reducing class size for those students beyond grade four. The only ones to benefit from the initiative’s passage will be the teacher unions, the construction companies, and the uninformed who will feel good because they did what they thought they should.
The passage of Initiative 1351 will cost the state $4.7 billion, which will only be found at the expense of some other school program or an increase in taxes, and neither of these options is a good one. It’s too bad that the voters were unable to do what the schools claim to have taught them to do, and that is to simply think about the information that was conspicuous by its absence in the argument over this measure.
Phil McMichael
Vancouver
