INC NEWS - High School report cards are out

[RW Pickle]

We read this week that Durham is the second most expensive cost-per-pupil
educational system in the State. Only Mecklenburg (Charlotte area) was
greater.

Newsweek magazine then arrives the next day with the cover of the top 100
High Schools in the country. Mecklenburg has 2 schools listed. Raleigh has
2 schools listed. Even Chapel Hill has 2 schools listed. But Durham had no
schools on the list at all. Even little Matthews, NC had one on the list.
But not Durham; the city full of bull. I mean the bull city. ; )

I don't have kids in our schools, but I still pay the taxes as if I did.
And I think it's time those of us who do this tell those running the show
that throwing money at the system won't fix it. It looks like we're doing
that now and it must not be working. Even the folks with kids in the
Durham schools should be mad about this.

Newsweek could have just missed us I guess. Durham, the forgotten part of
the triangle. If good things are happening in Durham, it must not be in
our educational system. It's easy to see that money isn't fixing the
problem. The other major university towns that surround us must have a
secret we have yet to learn. They made this list multiple times. Why don't
we ask them how to do it?

I said last week that if the Ral/Dur ever dropped the Dur from it, we'd
never make some of the lists we make. They didn't lump us together in this
high school study and we didn't make the list. Education has to be one our
priorities. At least we're spending money like it is and not getting the
results (like missing the Newsweek Top 100 all together unlike our
neighboring towns who do it for less).

Randy Pickle
Forest Hills