Sports alone don't drive up education costs

I would like to offer some comments regarding two recent letters that were highly critical of spending related to replacing the athletic field at Matawan-Aberdeen Regional High School with artificial turf. The thrust of the comments were that this spending is wasteful and reflects questionable education priorities.

Before commenting, I want to emphasize I am not an athlete myself nor is anyone in my family. The bottom line in my view is there is a lot of value in athletic programs even without considering the potential for some for the more talented athletes to earn athletic scholarships. I think sports teach and reinforce teamwork, discipline and the hard work it takes to win or to at least maximize individual and team potential. The same applies to cheerleading, by the way. Decent facilities and equipment are part of the equation. The need for lights and the opportunity to play at night is more questionable, I believe. The life skills that can be learned from sports are quite valuable in the adult world, and we should keep that in mind in setting budget priorities.

That said, there are several very significant factors that drive up the cost of education in New Jersey, which is one of the highest-cost states in the country and has the highest property taxes to show for it. All of these factors will require leadership from the governor and state Legislature to mitigate. They are as follows:

+ Extremely generous health and pension benefits relative to what is typically found in the private sector. I think employees should contribute significantly more toward the cost of their health benefits. The average employee contribution toward private sector plans - if health insurance is offered at all - is 17 percent of the premium, and the benefit structure itself is less generous. Federal employees pay 25 percent of the cost of their health insurance.

With respect to pensions, the current very generous defined benefit pension should be replaced with a less generous defined contribution plan for new employees. This will not save much money in the short run but will save plenty over the long term.

+ Abbott district costs are astronomical, most of which is paid with state funds. Despite massive spending, little progress has been made in closing the achievement gap with students from more affluent districts. We should try vouchers in these districts to inject some needed competition and hopefully reduce costs as well

+ Special education is very expensive and needs some attention focused on it. A business administrator from Bergen County told me recently the statewide average to educate a non-special-needs elementary school child is about $8,000 per year, a non-special-needs high school student costs $12,000 on average, and special education students cost $20,000-$100,000 each per year plus transportation. I wonder to what extent districts may be gaming the system in trying to qualify more students for special programs in order to increase district funding. Some of these students may just need a little extra tutoring help. Of course, students who have cerebral palsy, autism, are deaf or have other clear handicaps obviously require plenty of expensive services. However, with the possible exception of autism, it's hard to imagine there are significantly more of these cases as a percentage of the student population than there were 20 or 30 years ago.

+ Finally - as I have suggested several times in the past - rules could be changed to allow districts to charge for bus transportation while continuing to provide it free for those families that can demonstrate financial need.

In the context of these issues discussed above, the impact on our budget of replacing or not replacing the athletic field is minimal.

Barry Carol

Aberdeen