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real issue is not education but educational one-upmanship. We <br /> have been repeatedly told that the last school (the now- <br /> infamous McDougle Middle School) was an award-winning school. <br /> So it is. However, the awards were given before the school ever <br /> opened. These were architectural, not scholastic, awards. It <br /> remains to be demonstrated that children learn any better in <br /> architecturally award-winning schools than in more conventional <br /> structures. Consider, for contrast, the Duke Middle School on <br /> Erwin road. The architect of that school won no awards. The <br /> artichecture is the contemporary version of Quonset huts. Yet, <br /> in spite of the architectural poverty, Parents are waiting in line <br /> to shell-out the $6,000/year tuition. Why? The reason is what <br /> goes on inside the school, not the school. We don't need award- <br /> winning schools but award winning education. To confuse the <br /> two is to judge a book by it's cover. The problems which this <br /> system suffers from arise from weak curricula and poor <br /> leadership. No architect can solve these problems. <br /> My third reason is more symbolic. Do we want to make a <br /> public statement that we are The Haves, while much of this <br /> State struggles to fund schools which lack the essentials, like <br /> paper and pencils. They are The Have-Nots. Why therefore must <br /> we pay for three schools to get just one? Please compel the <br /> CHCSB to do their homework. Don't say yes in haste. Haste, <br /> after all, makes waste and we have altogether too much of that <br /> in Chapel Hill. <br /> Sincerely, <br /> John Reinhard <br /> 108 Linnaeus PI, <br /> Chapel Hill, NC <br /> 942-7811 <br /> 2 <br /> ,,4 <br />