If you have not seen the Hamburg Sun News this week here is the report in the paper on me. I thought it was fair.
Ford Beckwith
Beckwith describes himself as a “taxpayer advocate,” intent on
cutting extraneous meat from the budget and spending plan while
letting local residents know what’s going on with the board. He
promised residents that if elected, he will vote against every
proposed tax rate increase.
“We’ve reached the limit to what people can afford. There are so many
areas to cut,” said Beckwith, who added that he thinks the board
should have went as far as to decrease the tax rate this year. “The
board is here to be the public’s voice.”
”Taxes go up. I don’t care if we have a top-ranked sports
team or great facilities. You want to lay off nine teachers or have a
girls hockey team? Other people have other agendas…Everything I do
is for the taxpayer and for education.”
Beckwith added that he’d like to expose, as he suspects, the large
number of patronage positions with the school district. He supports a
two-term limit, stating that “You have ten years to make your mark.”
Citing former Erie County Executive Joel Giambra’s “Red and Green”
budget- which he said outlined a system to give the public an
opportunity to vote for either a tax increase or eliminate
“extraneous” positions- Beckwith said cuts still need to be made.
“If sports were that important, every student would play them,” said
Beckwith, who said he did not believe that many of the 5,245 district
students were involved in athletics. “It’s up to the public to decide.
We need to educate the public on needs…How many kids will get a job
playing football?”
Another contention Beckwith had with the current spending plan is him
alleging that the district pays more per student- in the range of
$14,000 per child- than that of higher-performing schools such as
Nardin Academy.He proposed the board look into private contracting to save money,
with sufficient services maintained.
A 1983 graduate of Frontier High and resident of Blasdell, Beckwith
heads the Hamburg Independence party and laments, as he said, the fact
that 57 percent of resident taxes go toward the Frontier School Board.
He said the graduation rate is too low for what residents pay in
taxes, adding that athletics should take a back seat to academics.
The graduation rate was 91 percent 10 years ago and it’s fallen,”
said Beckwith, who also served on the Hamburg Recreation Advisory
Committee.
Why have Universal Pre-K? Just another class of students for additional teachers/union members. Glorified babysitting at an unnecesary cost to the taxpayers. If the sucess of the school system was perfect and graduation rate was close to 100%, then it makes sense to try a new class of students. This Universal Pre-K class should fall under private enterprise business.
“Do we want to continue to sink money into sports versus education?” Beckwith asked. “You should teach kids to read, write, do math and science. . . . Everything after that is a bunch of crap. How many kids will grow up to play football?”
Apparently Mr Beckwith you do not understand the lessons learned from athletics. Athletics is and SHOULD very much be a part of the education process. Having attended 3 years of college I can honestly say I will never need to learn the process of Trigonometry, and the related concepts. In my major we use the AP style of grammar, not the MLA which was taught to me for 7 years in school. I never took chemistry, or physics and never need it. I will however need to know how to work together with others in achieving something common. Or how to work for months to make not just your self better but a team better. They say 1 percent of athletes play some form of collegiate sports, and .001 make it pro…but the lessons and friendships I learned playing sports FAR exceed the formula for solving something irrelevant. It is not even close. Playing sports taught me to overcome adversity, deal with hardships of failure and how to bounce back and handle success with grace. It taught me discipline and respect for others. Athletes are held to a higher expectations in the classroom than other students anyways. I have NEVER learned that in a science room. Plus I am sorry, I have never seen 3,500 people assemble for a spelling bee, like I have on a Friday Night in Lancaster. High school football can bring communities together in hard times and give a common bond and pride. Drive down central ave during the third week in October in the heart of Lancaster, the entire town is Red and Black. You go 5 minutes down Broadway, the entire village of Depew is Blue and White. It brings school spirit out as cliques fail to exist during football season, because everyone wears red and black. The lessons that our lives should be based on, and the values can NOT come from a text book, they come through experience. I am sorry you do not understand this and apparently your education FAILED you miserably as a youth. You sound like the father of the son who killed himself in the 1989 classic Dead Poet Society (yes we watched a movie in 10th grade English, to enhance the learning process because a regular text book could not portray the message creatively enough). A my way or the high way elderly conformist. I am pleased the Frontier voters have enough sense to recognize what is best for their students, because clearly you do not.
Sean Bruso
Very nice commentary Sean but I’m afraid you are missing the point. If you read the NYS Constitution and almost every local School Districts charter and bylaws you will find that sports isn’t included in the MANDATORY educational requirements.
That being said, don’t allow the media to twist my words. What I said was, we should not be eliminating 9 teaching positions to fund a girls hockey team when the graduation rate is only 83%. The hockey team can wait. Only half my comments were printed. When they take what I say out of context this is what we get.
The Buffalo News reported all this in previous articles but conveniently left out those facts when they printed the article about me. I think those facts paint a different light on my comments.