Michael submitted it to The Washington Post as part of his intensive journalistic writing class requirement. It was published on Sunday, May 24, 1992, in the Close to Home section. To Michael's delight it received many letters in response to it, several of which were published in the Post. The school board reversed its decision.

In the universal scale of things, how much is $445,000? Is it enough to buy a country? A planet? A star? Is it enough to block out all the planets and stars from the universe of Fairfax students? Apparently so.

As of June, the Fairfax County School Board has decided to close the school system's nine high school planetariums and cancel annual field trips to the planetariums taken by thousands of elementary school students.

The planetariums are old and expensive. Few students ever stop inside them after they leave elementary school The county must spend more than $400,000 a year on a specially trained teacher for the planetariums and for maintenance on star projectors and other equipment. It also spends another $45,000 to transport fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students to the planetariums each year for a few ours of instruction and stargazing.

The demise of the planetariums will not create storms of protests or draw crowds of angry parents to school board meetings. They represent just a small portion of the school budget. Nevertheless, they should not be shut down.

If money is the main concern, the school board should realize that closing the planetariums might actually cost more money than keeping them open. The planetariums' equipment has an estimated value of almost $10 million, but most of it is site-specific and would be almost impossible to sell. And without maintenance, star and slide projectors are bound to deteriorate. An even greater danger to the equipment would be to keep the planetarium open for occasional use. Without trained operators, a well-meaning teacher could cause irreparable damage to sophisticated star projectors.

The county has put millions of dollars into its planetariums, which are among the few operational planetariums not on college campuses or in urban museums; it makes little sense to give up the long-term monetary value of this equipment for a relatively small short-term savings.

But the worth of the planetariums can't b measured in dollars alone. Each year, the planetariums introduce almost 30,000 elementary students to astronomy. The children see the phases of the moon, the motions of the Earth and the life and death of stars graphically illustrated on a curved dome above the heads. Abstract concepts are made real, and students can experience and understand the reasons for the "bite" in the moon and the changing seasons. Even if they don't remember which way the moon revolves around the Earth, the children leave with a better idea of the universe they inhabit. They also may leave with a better appreciation for the uniqueness of our planet and the importance of preserving its resources.

American elementary and high school students continue to do poorly in international math and science exams, and presidential candidates and members of Congress are once again promising new education policies to raids American scholastic competitiveness. Now is not the time to be eliminating science instruction from the Fairfax County curriculum, especially a science that elementary students can understand and enjoy without getting lost in numbers and formulas. The county's nine high school planetariums need to be preserved.

Some Questions to Consider

1. What types of factual information has Groenert provided?
2. Who do you think he interviewed?
3. Where might he have gotten some of his numbers?
4. Was his order of presentation of argument persuasive?
5. Can you tell that he was once an elementary school child who attended a planetarium presentation? Did he need to state that?
6. Many who read and responded to Michael Groenert's persuasive piece thought he was an adult citizen in the community. They did not read the acknowledgment that he was a student. Do you think it helped or hindered his ability to persuade for that information to have been provided by the Post?