While I do think that sometimes too much money is spent on certain sports or activities in some schools (i.e. football or show choir), I think it is small minded to think that we should only fund reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Learning Spanish forced me to practice reading and writing skills as well as understand tenses better.
Being in the school bands forced me to practice reading and mathematical skills while working as part of a team.
On the Forensics team I learned how to write and give quality speeches and be comfortable giving them to groups of people.
Physical education and the tennis team helped burn off energy built up during the day so I could focus on homework, work as part of a team, put my brain to use on learning new skills and strategies.
Core subjects are certainly important and should be given emphasis but it is ridiculous to ignore the benefits of other academic and extracurricular activities.
The tax payers invested in my mind while I was in high school. They helped me take six AP classes (but eight AP exams) and three college courses while in high school. I essentially started college as a junior (with Spanish "retro-credits"). This helped me spend less of my time and less of the taxpayers' and my own money on my college education.
I went on to be the first person in my family to graduate from college (and did so twice, a BS and a BA) and got a decent job at a decent pay. I now make much more money than I likely would have and pay taxes to build roads, provide public services, and invest in young minds. The taxpayers will receive more money from me in the long-run than the spent on me in the past.
Core classes are important but so are these "extras." Yes, there are some that should have to self-fund more. Yes, we sometimes need to trim things. No, we do not need to cut them all and treat them as trivial things. If we are willing to invest in today's youth, it will pay off in the long run.

I will gladly pay my taxes so that they can be used to teach a child a foreign language, math, science, geography, or any other subject that is going to help make future generations better equipped than the last. I think it's sad that we position one school subject against another and talk about which ones we can afford and which ones we can't. We should be proud to spend our tax money on education. One day this blue-collar town is going to have to wake up and realize that manufacturing jobs are not coming back. Want your kid to get a job? Give him or her an education! It's the best thing you can do for them - instead of teaching them to sit around and gripe about your tax dollars.

good post joker;) your 100' yacht, new car, and big screen tvs are most def relevant to a childs education and the cost that goes along with it.

Bella, Lakeland then you come up with the extra money to support those that could not pay for it them selves. I did offer the idea of fund raiser. What a idea teaching our children how to earn a dollar to get what they want.

The 3 Rs are what is only required of the tax payer.Those are the skills most demanded by employers. If they want a another language tell them to use the lost library where they have clubs which are independent of the tax payer. I believe they are non profit.

lakekennedy - fully agree! Learning a foreign language is not a privilige for those who can afford it; it should be available to all school children. One of the reasons American kids are so far behind the rest of the world in terms of primary education is the lack of foreign language skills! Improve those courses, plus math and science, and kids will have a brighter future.

Great idea, Polert. Then only those who come from wealthy families will be learning the "fluff". I think we have very different definitions of what constitutes "fluff". To me, it is a disservice to our children to not offer these classes. While we're at it I think I need to point out that being born into a lower income family shouldn't translate into not being offered the same opportunities as those who are. I fully support the expansion of foreign languages in Janesville.

Bella, I recall $1.7 million for sports when the debate took place a couple months ago at budget time. When you divide that out among the number of students it impacts and compare it to the total budget (which I think is around $111 million), it's not too bad. The problem I have is when you compare a student of foreign language to an athlete, you could be talking about the same student. While I strongly believe that students should take advantage of anything and everything their district has to offer, it is the districts responsibility to offer what the taxpayer can afford - while offering a quality education to it's youth. That's a tough thing to do when the economy busts and the community slides.
The school board should absolutely consider the charter school application and investigation of grant funds, but once the charter school has a financial burden to the taxpayer above and beyond what it would cost for the education within our existing system, then they must use caution as that will be a hard thing to explain when everything else is experiencing cuts.

Bella I could not agree with you more. We need to only subsides the three Rs. Sports, clubs,foreign language expansion should all be user paid for, and they should be supported by fund raising along with private donors. The school could provide the location but after that it is on its own.

Can we justify not teaching foreign languages in our schools simply because it costs money? I would argue that we cannot afford NOT to teach foreign languages. Out of curiosity, does anyone know how much the Janesville schools spend on sports? I'd be interested in seeing the numbers. In my opinon, team sports is something that kids should do outside of school and paid for by parents. I'm not talking about PE classes, but team sports like football, soccer, track, and so on. Why are tax payers paying for those? I'd rather pay for something that would make our kids competitive on the job market, not the football field.

What I get bella is the economy is in the dump, and there is no room for fluff. If a parent wants fluff then take their child off campus, and pay for it them selves.

Learning a foreign language is not "a luxury", or "fluff", as some of you posted. Children ought to begin learning a second language at a much younger age than 7th grade. Children in Europe start learning a foreign language in first grade, when the brain's capability for learning languages is much greater than later in adolescence. The earlier, the better. If you want your children to be competitive in a global market place, then let them learn a second language and encourage all the foreign travel/study abroad programs they can possibly participate in. Let your children have every opportunity to learn and grow. Contrary to what you might think, there is an entire world out there, and Wisconsin is NOT the center of the universe. Luckily, there are some intelligent educators and parents out there that actually get it.

I think once we get the three Rs level to meet world standards then the schools can offer fluff.

Joker- There have been countless studies on the benefits of world language study. Better understanding of your native language being one of the most important. As a language teacher, I can attest to the fact that more than once, students have commented to me that only though learning my world language did they really understand what their English teachers had been trying to teach them!

AMEN! How can they afford to add another course when they can't afford to add additional teachers to keep class sizes under 20! In my district the kindergarten classes are at 27 students!

"wary of costs"? Yes, they should be as well us taxpayers. NO NO NO to the expansion. If the board approves this they really are the idiots I think they are. We can barely afford to make our schools run now. Where is all of this money coming from?

This same idiot mentality exists with this concept of a childrens museum. Some people in Janesville have all of these great ideas but have no concept of fiscal responsibility or for that matter fiscal reality. I would like a new car, a 100 foot yacht, a Rolex and big screen tv's in all the rooms of my house. But I am "wary of the cost".

Hey, we all want stuff and yes, some are important but learning Chineese, German, French, etc is not essential for these students. This is a luxury for students. If they want to pay for private lessons and tutors, all the more power to them. But I and you as taxpayers should not have to pay for them. Our money can be better spent on teaching students how to use proper grammar and speak English in a professional manner. If you have been around some of these kids, you know what I mean.

Before everyone tells me all of this nonsense about China becoming a dominant country or we need to expose our students to the world, let's start with our Janesville students learning how to spell, learning puncuation, learning grammar and learning how to put a complete sentence together. If our students cannot perform basic English skills, then why bother with any other language?!!

Some basic ASL is taught in the special education track, because of the disabled students in that program. It's more of a functional thing, though.
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ASL is recognized as a foreign language by Wisconsin for credit purposes, so the school board could decide to make that one of the options.
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DrTalk, I realize you're just trolling, but there is no one single "Spanish" sign language. Individual Spanish-speaking countries all have their own sign languages, although most of them are ultimately derived from French Sign Language.

I have seen ASL signs being taught in elementary schools, usually as part of a song or performance in music class. This has been done for many years. I also visited a Preschool 4 Janesville site this morning and saw a chart of hand signs on the wall. -- Gazette reporter Frank Schultz.

Maybe they should start offering Spanish sign language as well.

Yes! There is definitely a need for more people who know ASL. Not only would it allow people to have a lot more job opportunities, but giving children the option of learning sign language would allow for more communication among students who are deaf and those who are not. Like other foreign languages, sign language is learned much easier when it is taught at a young age. I would have taken sign language classes in school if given the opportunity. I think knowing sign language is much more practical than knowing how to speak Chinese or German (unless one plans to study abroad or move to those countries).

I'd love to see people start learning sign language. Is that offered in our schools?