I graduated from a Southern California high school in 1959, when that system was considered the best in the nation. The cost per student for the 1960-61 school year was $390. The only additional fees required were for materials for shop classes, a monthly bus pass and California Interscholastic Federation sports insurance at $10 for the school year. We had art, music, shop, home economics, a full-time nurse and counselors.

Using the U.S. Inflation Calculator, that $390 comes out to $3,077 this year. Yet Durango School District 9-R has budgeted just a few dollars shy of $8,000 per student for the 2013-14 school year. And there are a multitude of fees and charges students have to provide many of the items that we got at no charge in the course of our studies back in the day.

While I understand that many of the costs associated with education today are derived from unfunded state and federal mandates, additional funds aren’t the answer. The fact that District 9-R has had to run classified ads to recruit school board members is telling.

It’s time to abolish the Department of Education and return schools to local and state accountability. No amount of money from increased taxes will fix a broken system.

Dennis Pierce

Durango