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Show j" Cyclops By BRYAN GRAY Parents shouldn't expect schools chain student wallets A reader pulled me aside last week to talk about travel. But what he really wanted to talk about was a school board's efforts to limit student stu-dent spending. Student spending has become a hot topic in Davis County. The Davis County Clipper helped bring the controversy to a low boil last month when it editorialized against student fund-raisers and the inability inabili-ty of so-called "poorer" schools to match the activities of East Bench institutions. Then, last week, a member of the Davis County School Board brought up the exorbitant cost of attending at-tending school dances. A patron, he said, was concerned about a grandson grand-son who had blown $150 on a junior ju-nior prom. The Cyclops reader knows something about spending. He had recently forked over $250 so his son could travel with the Davis High band to San Francisco. Some of the band members' parents were not happy. But our reader was not among these grumblers. "I'm concerned that educators may soon build a Berlin Wall around Utah and stop our students from any real social growth connected con-nected with travel, ' he said 'Listen, my folks were fairly poor when I was growing up in Virginia but every so often the school approved ap-proved a trip to Washington, D.C. "The trips took us off the farm and into big city culture, kind of like the teacher did in "To Sir With Love." I'll never forget those excursionsand ex-cursionsand without these school trips, I probably never would have had the opportunity to see the Washington monuments, the nation's historical documents or the museums. "Now it's the same with my boy. The opportunity to see the ocean, San Francisco and Alcatraz is something he wouldn't get without a student trip Our family has no plans to visit San Francisco. With our work schedules, we couldn't do it and even if we could find time, we certainly couldn't go for a mere $250. My son will learn more of value on that trip than he ever could spending spen-ding a week in a biology class, parents in Davis County should stop grumbling and start opening doors for the kids." This man is not rich. In fact, he makes less than $18,000 per year, considerably less than the county average. On that income, finding an extra $250 was not an easy task. Then again, neither is education. parents have a right to be concerned con-cerned about student spending. But h parents should not expect a school or a school board to buy the leash. If a kid thinks he has to rent a limousine lim-ousine for transportation to a school prom, then the parent should be the one who takes away the key. Don't expect a school board to punish 1,500 kids for the spendthrift habits of one. Anyway, if a parent can't control a student's behavior, why should a school board member be any more successful? As Dr. Ray Briscoe said at last week's school board debate, "We can't tell students whether they should go to Hardee's for a hamburger or to Le Caille." Students have to make that choice and if they don't have their own money, parents at least those with backbone-get to make the choice for them. And I feel similarly about the fund-raisers and trips so criticized by the Davis County Clipper editorial writer. The criticism is based on life being unfair and that some families have more money than others. Well, welcome to the real world. Schools can't solve the unequal distribution in wealth by putting a padlock on certain wallets. Neither should government try to equalize opportunities by catering to the lowest wage-earning denominator. fa If a group of Bountiful High students, for instance, have families able to fund a trip to Paris, I'd be the first one in line to stamp their visas. The fact that a handful of students cannot go .should not block the opportunities for the others. You don't punish low-income kids by banning them from school, and neither should we punish the students from successful families by denying them other opportunities oppor-tunities for growth. If travel bans are instituted, the next thing will be a limit on the types of cars students can drive to the school parking lot. It's very simple. Some students (and some schools) have more advantages ad-vantages than others. Schools can't alter that fact any better than Karl Marx or Lyndon Johnson. The only answer is for certain parents to say "no" when asked for extra money and for other parents to skip that extra six-pack of beer or bag of Pringles and put that money into an experience for their children. And don't jabber peer pressure. That, like financial inequality, is just another fact of life best unsolved unsolv-ed by elected school boards-and newspaper editorial writers. |