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Let me see if I've got this straight. As taxpayers we spend approximately $18,000 per student a year, for less than half of them to graduate from the public school system - which cost us $111 million to run last year.

No doubt the newly-appointed Minister will be asking for even more money in the Budget later this month. My question is: Do we as taxpayers have any say on how that money will or won't be spent?

I'm not surprised by Randolph Horton's call for an independent review. That's typical - just what we need; another report that will go on the shelf once the headlines are written. What happens to the children in the interim? How many more have to fail before something meaningful is done?

We're talking about building more hotels. With failing students, who are going to work the shifts? More foreigners no doubt, and where do we plan to house them? A fellow columnist has been writing about Bermudians being displaced in their own country. What we need to talk about openly are the Bermudians who are displacing themselves.

For instance, the figures show that girls are outscoring boys in the final graduation figures. Couple that with the fact that by the year 2010, women will outnumber men in the workforce for the first time in the history of this country. And it makes for a gloomy picture.

I have a son in the public school system, where there were marked improvements at the primary school level when the PLP took over. Now that he's bound for middle school that same old public versus private school debate is heating up in my house again.

As a parent of a so-called 'high risk' young black male, I have serious reservations about sending my only child to a predominantly white run establishment before his identity is fully in place. I know far too many black male graduates of private schools who are confused about who they are or where they come from as black men.

My faith in the public school system is waning again. In fact I think it's shot. For far too many years it has held back by a top heavy Ministry of Education that employs 1,200 pen pushers. Mr. Horton, what do you plan to do about the pen pushers who are not earning the paper we pay them? It's time for some heads to roll. When you debate the pros and cons of your Ministry's new budget, do you plan to explain why we as taxpayers will be required to pay even more money for failing students?

To our teachers: I know you work hard, some harder than others. But I want to know why you so quickly down tools and go on strike for more money, but you won't march for whatever the hell it is you need to make sure our students - our black boys in particular - make it to the finish line with honours rather than failing grades.

To the parents of these high risk black males, to their mothers in particular - how is it that our children wear the best clothes and the hottest sneakers and yet have nothing in their heads?

Could it be we're not raising real men?

There's no single person to blame in this. We're all responsible.

We as women, the first teachers in this world, have a lot to answer for. There was a time when guys who weren't really bright couldn't get much play with females. But these days it seems the dumber he is, the more votes he gets.

If his momma's caught up, or even worse, his daddy is too - what happens to Junior? If his parents don't care, why should he? Why should we? I'll tell you why; he'll be the one costing us a fortune in taxpayers' money at the other end of the spectrum, through incarceration or some other societal ill.

The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. If her hand is shaky and she's dropped the ball, it's over. If that's what's happening, heaven help us all, because when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.[[In-content Ad]]

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