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Hey JohnStark:

I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree if you expect specifics from Corrente. He's been running for more than 500 days [give him five seconds and he'll brag about it] and has yet to outline anything more specific than "If Scott Avedisian is for it, I'm against it."

You won't get a dollar figure for tax rate cuts, for example, because he really can't quantify what he wants to reduce in the city budget. He's calling for a "full audit," which was a favorite talking point of the failed tea party Republican in 2014, but can't explain what that would actually prove, other than that he wants to waste money on something that is produced on a yearly basis already.

And as far as Warwick schools are concerned, vouchers will never pass. Any such proposal would have to go through the General Assembly -- and because it represents, in effect, a loss in funding for local school districts, it will never happen. So, even if Corrente had an answer for you, it's kind of a pointless debate.

Also, the school department isn't paying "$18,000 per student" in actually delivering education -- the consolidation showed that it was spending almost $6 million more than it had to [or about $6,000 per student] in order to keep half-empty high schools open. Now it has that money to pay down its own debts, which reduces that per-student cost to something closer to reality.

Not to mention, the burden on the city has been small in terms of paying for schools because they've essentially been level-funded for about a decade.

I do get the feeling, though, that Corrente might like some of your approach since it reads like the tea party's greatest hits -- school vouchers, "merit pay" for teachers, elimination of regulations -- and Corrente has proven himself to be perfectly aligned with that sort of thinking.