District has options beyond teacher layoffs
To the editor:
The local daily print newspaper monopoly and the leadership of Clark County School District would have you believe that the elimination of more than 1,000 teacher positions is solely due to unreasonable demands from teachers.
The newspaper is attempting to manipulate public opinion by manipulating the news. Has there been one article or editorial questioning whether eliminating 1,000 teacher positions is the only option? Was there an in-depth series on the creation of 13 performance zones with 13 sets of administrators, secretaries and office space during a budget crisis?
There was a constant stream of articles and editorials over the past four months about teacher pay raises. Was there an article that explained that many teachers have not had a raise in three years, and that they won’t get one next year, either? The only raise a teacher can get after 14 years is a cost-of-living raise.
How much money should Nevada spend per student to educate the children who reside here? Almost every other state in our country believes it costs more than what Nevada spends, and of the 25 largest school districts in the United States of America, the Clark County School District is dead last. Even the Washoe County School District spends $320 more per student than the county that sends more than its fair share of taxes up north.
How many children should one adult be expected to supervise? Things have changed since you were in school. Most students are carrying a device that allows them to watch movies, listen to music, surf the Internet, contact their friends and family, shop and do any other number of things during class. How many students in a class of 38 are eager to learn the material? Nevada has one of the worst student-teacher ratios in the United States of America.
No teachers in Nevada should be laid off when any other recourse is available.
Jeremy M. Christensen
Las Vegas
Low standards
To the editor:
Your glaring front-page photo Sunday was totally inappropriate and crude considering what any moral or ethical family newspaper would publish on its cover (“Game gets gay twist”).
I’m 100 percent in favor of freedom of the press, but there’s a lot of responsibility connected with that precious freedom. That photo, which illustrated a story on drag queens playing bingo on the Strip, was something one would expect to see in the smut distributed on the Strip sidewalks, not in our supposed respectable hometown newspaper.
I’ve been reading the Review-Journal for almost 50 years. I hope you will use better judgment in the future or hire someone with higher professional standards.
David A. Freeman
Las Vegas
Anti-capitalist
To the editor:
If ever a window into a politician’s soul was opened, it had to be the completely anti-free market comment made by our sitting president last week. The president made the unbelievable statement that “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Really?
Who did it, President Obama? Who signed the lease to start the business? Who spent the money for the inventory to be sold or the equipment to be used to produce a product? Who hired the employees to service the clients? Who risked their own money to start that business when failure would bankrupt them?
It seems as if the president truly believes that everything springs from government. A month ago, this president made the statement that the private sector was “doing fine” and that we had to focus on the public sector to get the economy going. His campaign aides hurriedly explained that he really didn’t mean what he said, but it is painfully obvious that he said what he actually believes in his heart.
The question for all Americans is very, very simple.
Can we endure four more years of a president who has no belief in the very core of our society, the system of capitalism that made us the most powerful and wealthiest nation in history? This president has absolutely no interest in seeing the private sector recover. He doesn’t believe in it, and to re-elect him would be a dangerous attack on our very way of life.
Joseph Schillmoeller
Las Vegas
Lifting the middle
To the editor:
While I seldom agree with liberal thinking, I believe the column by Susan Estrich in Sunday’s Review-Journal, on our neglect of “average” students, touched a nerve.
Kids thrive on challenges. My suggestion for a solution is to give the same material that is aimed at the A students to the middle. Nothing new would be required from school curriculums. The middle might not do as well as the “uppers” but they would be happier and improve their development.
Shad Dvorchak
Henderson
Merciless power
To the editor:
The merciless power of state regulation is evident in the case of Marion Brady, a kind soul who rescues hummingbirds (Saturday Review-Journal). Ms. Brady, whose work was shut down, fails to understand that the state is the sole authority concerning migratory birds.
Citizens with a blue jay, cardinal or hummingbird in their care are subject to fine and punishment by those who regulate wild birds. The wildlife official’s logic is that those helping birds must have the necessary experience, proper permits and avoidance of bird disease.
The law stinks and should be thrown out.
William Donati
Las Vegas
