From the halls of the capitols in Washington and Atlanta to classrooms in Thomas County, the cry is the same. There is not enough money to run our schools.

Most of our local taxes go for education: yet it’s never enough.

What is the answer? Maybe too much money: could that be? The root problem of many educational systems today is the heavy infusion of state and federal funds which do not seem to be translating into raising the educational ability of our citizens.

Due to the application of state and national standards mandated on local boards of education by politicians, labor unions and educational advocates of one sort or another, there never will be enough money for education.

All the while as bureaucracy builds, funds from all sources continue to dry up at a rapid pace.

Recessions spell trouble for education, public and private. And since education takes the biggest chunk of the pie, it is only natural that the educational budget gets the greater attention when cuts are being made.

Ron Paul, in his book The Revolution says, "The quickest way to destroy American education is to triple federal funds to public schools.

That will close them down and then charter schools will take over."

Paul makes this observation. A few years ago he called the New York City school system to inquire as to how many administrative positions they had. The answer he received was 6,000. Then he called the Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic church and found while they had only one-fifth the number of students the city had they were able to run their school system with only 26 administrative posts.

I have no idea how to interpret those figures other than to say that’s a very large imbalance and must have a significant impact on the cost of taxes levied on the taxpayers of New York City.

State and local school budgets will get very close scrutiny during the current Georgia legislative session due to the state, by law, having to present a balanced budget.

School systems should go to a zero-based budgeting process if they are not now doing so. The state has reduced its budget from more than $21 billion to what many believe will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $17 billion for the upcoming year. It’s belt-tightening time and maybe the one thing we have to look forward to is that we will still have a belt.

I am convinced that the local classroom school teacher is not the basic cause for the unrest and crisis in our educational system today.

Some of my thoughts about the culprits are: a lack of parental support, drugs and crime due in large part to the abundance of dysfunctional family units, and mandated federal rules and regulations. All have the effect of taking local control out of the hands of teachers, principals and system administrators.

Burdensome requirements for teachers to attend workshops, seminars and filling out reams of questionnaires and surveys all take their toll on the usefulness and quality educational time for classroom activity.

I am, and always have been, a supporter of public education and I fully support private schools and home schooling efforts as well.

I think public education is one of the few, legitimate functions of government. It is supposed to provide an opportunity for each person to be allowed to enter society on an equal basis in order to be able to earn a living and raise a family.

Paying school taxes while not having children in school is our guard against ignorance and lost hope.

However, I object to a bloated department of education of the federal government mandating rules and regulations that have nothing to do with educating children.