Cudos to Fritz Efaw for his analysis.  I found one or two other comments to
be remarkably _____ (your word) as well.  One of the representatives
commented that many other states with income taxes are in the same dilemma
as Tennessee.  Respectfully, sir, no they aren't.  Tennessee has the
singular distinction of being fiftieth in the country in per capita
expenditures for education.  They may be having trouble balancing their
budgets but not a single one of them is worse that we are concerning
educational funding.

Want to go back to the good old days when the state appropriated 46% of its
budget to education instead of the current 41%.  We were pathetic then too.
 Why go back to a past when we were already awful?

Tired of hearing folks talk about eliminating the deficit?  Seems to me if
we eliminate the deficit we'll still be the worst in the country, we'll
just have eliminated the deficit.

Finally, one of our local talk show hosts had a person on who said that I
didn't have my facts straight, that we were 48th in per capita spending.
Sorry, your mistake, we're 48th in per pupil expenditures, but who gives a
rat's patoot.  Being 48th instead of 50th would mean we're just really
awful instead of terribly awful.  Awful is awful.  Either way you cut it
we're pathetic and it hurts students, businesses and the quality of life
for Tennesseans.  Hard to argue with some folks though.  Why have a battle
of wits with an unarmed man?

Finally, I thought the most effective statement, by far, was made by the
young woman who expressed her love for the State, this city, this
university and then her expressed her concerns about educating children and
living here in the future.

Unfortunately, unless we all get after these folks, and maybe not even
then, will anything get done.  All four agreed that the most persuasive
thing we can do is to write personal letters with the kind of plea I
mentioned just above.

I, like Fritz, thought our students did a great job.  We should all be
proud of their initiative.

Dan Baker