In comments made at the end of last night’s school board meeting, Chairman Alan Duncan made it a point to let the public know that GCS is not getting any help from the state for the system’s pressing construction needs.
For starters, Duncan is concerned that the proposed $2 billion statewide school bond referendum will hinder support for the GCS’ proposed local referendum. Putting GCS’ construction issues aside, Duncan is right to be concerned that voters won’t want to pay for schools at the state level and the local level. There is such a thing as asking too much, and local bonds could very well be sacrificed along with a statewide bond.
But guess what else? GCS not only isn’t getting as much money from the state lottery as it hoped, but the state is also exploring the option of diverting that money to programs other than school construction that, by the way, are already funded at the local level.
“Please don’t think the so-called ‘education lottery’ is providing us with any kind of meaningful funding to help us at all with our school construction needs. It’s just not,” Duncan said.
Again, we’ll leave GCS’ construction issues aside for the moment. The bottom line is the brilliant idea of a state lottery to help pay for education isn’t working out that well.
