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Don Holmes has been a steady leader for Spotsylvania's schools

October 23, 2007 12:35 am

The differences between the two candidates for Spotsylvania School Board's Salem District seem clear.

Don Holmes provided courageous service to his country as a Marine Corps officer. He's been a steady, thoughtful leader on the board for more than three years. His children attended Spotsylvania Schools. During his tenure, Spotsylvania schools have improved in virtually all performance and efficiency measures.

The challenger, Eric Martin, appears to be new to thinking about making public education work. Amazingly, he proposes to increase spending on teacher salaries, pay higher incentives for teachers, fix the sports fields, and put more money into classrooms--all while giving schools less funding.

Given that human resource costs in our schools make up 80 percent of the school division budget, Mr. Martin's math just does not work! It looks to be a recipe for disaster in a No Child Left Behind environment.

Mr. Martin states that the school division has asked for 10 percent to 20 percent budget increases over the past 10 years. Wrong. He states that our SAT scores are down. Wrong. He states that crime in our schools has increased. Wrong. He states our drop-out rate has increased. Wrong.

These inaccuracies and his flawed budget discussion lead one to assume Mr. Martin does not want to know the real facts about the schools' budget. He's armed only with politically motivated, negative rhetoric aimed to discredit our public schools.

Please vote for Don Holmes for School Board.