If we only could run our schools like the widget makers

If this were strictly a business decision, it would be a relatively easy one: Bell Vue Middle would be closed. The savings of about $2 million would help stem a projected $12 million overall budget deficit for next year.

Done.

But they don’t make widgets at Belle Vue; they educate children, unfortunately, not well enough based on state and federal standards. Belle Vue has been the worst performer – a D school listed as “intervene” in a combined state-federal grading system.

That makes it a candidate not to survive no matter what happens in budget cutting.

In the next few weeks, as our community learns how exactly our School Board intends to cut another $12 million from its $268 million budget, expect things to get emotional. It’s just the latest round of potential cuts that have taken some $23 million out of local schools since 2007.

In the past four years, spending on public schools in Florida has fallen about a half billion dollars.

If we were building widgets, we’d have to start wondering what impact the cuts are having on product quality, and we’d have to worry how far ahead the competition – that is, private schools – is getting.

But we don’t make widgets, we educate children and develop good citizens, which is even more cause for concern.

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