Don’t rob homeowners to fund the failing APS

ALBUQUERQUE PUBLIC SCHOOLS is asking voters to increase the property tax for further funding. This is so ridiculous, it’s insulting. I am a teacher and have worked my entire career in Albuquerque. APS is in horrible condition. Classes are often taught for months on end by substitutes. Teachers have few classroom aides to help with constantly overcrowded classrooms. Violence and scandals are commonplace and APS provides educational results that are consistently substandard.

However, each year, taxpayers are already paying over $16,000 a student for these kids to be put through a failing, bureaucratic nightmare. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of private, Christian and parochial schools throughout Albuquerque that are struggling to get students. Each of them provides a substantially superior education to APS for about a third of what we are already spending through APS.

These schools operate much cheaper, allow parental involvement and control, are already here, and do a great job. APS, on the other hand, forces everyone to pay around $500,000 a year per class of students. If we gave half of these public funds to actually fund each student’s education instead of propping up APS’s bloating mismanagement, we could educate all the students of Albuquerque for less than we are spending right now — with the added benefit that a fine education wouldn’t be a novelty for the wealthy, but the norm for everyone.

Our public schools would improve, our private schools would, too, and Albuquerque wouldn’t be being ripped off by APS begging voters to throw money at its constant problems.

APS doesn’t need to raise our property taxes. It needs reform. There is no reason to keep propping up a failing system with more and more of our money. APS needs a thorough overhaul, not to rob Albuquerque homeowners. DAVID M. ZAHN Albuquerque