LEVY: Why you should vote 'no'

I’m new to Coeur d’Alene. After a career in the military, I taught high school for five years. For 30 years, I’ve studied how most all districts refuse to improve. Every district in America claims academic good news, yours included.

The truth is: The Northwest U.S. is not known for good schools, and, there are very good reasons that so many of you are trying to “escape” your public schools. Why? 1. Obscenely inflated grades. 2. An absence of any serious evaluation system for teachers. 3. Districts hire supervision that merely watch lax discipline, sloppy dress, and bullying. 4. A desperate, and unanswered, need for far longer and more school days.

American junior and senior high schools cannot compete with the world unless our students have been through Advanced Placement (AP) classes — only 20 percent have in CDA. If you keep delivering funding without reforms, Coeur d’Alene schools have no reason to improve. Your kids (the other 80 percent) are owed the future that include such reforms. Without reforms, no on levies!

RON DEADY

Coeur d’Alene