There has been a lot of discussion recently about the Conroe Independent School District’s $807 million bond proposal. I am voting “NO” on this bond and this is why.
I agree with CISD board member Dale Inman, who called for a thorough evaluation of this bond to determine “needs” vs. “wants.” We should also have some detail as to why changing tables cost $60,000 each and power outlets will cost $2,000 each, etc. I don’t know of anyone who would be that irresponsible with their own money and pay such bloated prices for things. This isn’t Monopoly money, folks.
If this bond goes through, the CISD will have foisted about $2 BILLION in bond debt upon the taxpayers, and with the ever-increasing home appraisals tied to the tax rate to pay off this debt, it will have a compounding effect year after year. To give you some perspective, that $2 BILLION in debt exceeds the gross domestic product of many small countries. This is not good, folks—not good at all. And I hope that people will take a step back and evaluate this instead of falling for the emotional argument that this is “for the children” and for our teachers.
My wife is a teacher. My mother was a teacher for over 30 years. My brother is also in education, so I certainly know and appreciate how hard they work and the importance of the job they have. So, with that in mind, let’s take CISD board director Dale Inman’s advice and identify where our money is best spent to take care of our teachers and improve educational outcomes.
And before someone chimes in and tells me all about CISD’s great educational outcomes, I will tell you that when you “teach to the test” you are going to post results that belie the truth about educational outcomes. A better indicator would be the enormous amount of kids entering the Lone Star College system who lack basic reading, writing, and math skills and have to take several remedial courses even though their STAAR and EOC tests show that they were brilliant when they left CISD.
I encourage you to vote “NO” on May 4 and tell them that they need to fix this bond and spend our money wisely.
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