I’m writing in support of the San Juan Island School District Capital and Technology Levy, despite the fact that my wife and I have no children attending here.

You have already been provided with the charts and graphs and various mathematical analyses, so I will spare you that. My support lies in my firm conviction that the measure of a community may be taken by the support it provides to its next generation.

In my law practice, I read carloads of material ranging from court decisions to the journals published by the various components of our society: economic, social, educational, historic, and the like, as well as material from other cultures. What troubles me in reading comparative surveys of international student performance, is that American students face the specter of the risk of being surpassed in the areas of learning that will dictate success in the economies of the future: science, technology, engineering, and math, the core concerns of this levy. That our state’s  Supreme Court ever had to consider the case  of McCleary versus The State of Washington, and go on to find, what so many educators had known, that our children were being denied the fundamental constitutional right of basic education, does not speak well of our society. The remedial portion of the decision drags on, almost if scripted by Charles Dicken’s story about eternal litigation, “Bleak House.”

I am proud that our community has supported our schools in the face of political wrangling, and the jibes of folks of a different mindset. I have to admit, it is tempting for a person of my vintage to see educational needs through the eyes of someone who labored on Underwood typewriters, used a slide rule, and saw slide projections on sheets hung from windows, in a 49-student classroom.

Like all things historic, that has passed, and I see a future demanding that our children be among the best prepared for that future, and that means that we must be among the best  providers of that preparation.

That is what community is about, for my saying that I saved a few bucks by downplaying  my role in my community’s children’s education may preserve my wealth numerically, but not morally.

Anthony Vivenzio

San Juan Island