LETTERS: Education system still doesn’t value teachers

Teachers trampled

The 2015 school year begins soon. What can you expect to change for the better? Nothing.

Teachers are under attack by a system that will not compensate them. Eight years without any raises, a medical plan that has increased the co-pay for doctors and prescription medication, a reduction in the retirement contribution and, of course, another increase in class sizes.

The shortage of teachers, as well as special education staffers who deal daily with the autistic, learning disabled and a host of other severe situations, is a continuing problem. Qualified professionals will not come here due to the lack of financial incentives and the system that has allowed this to continue. Where is the money for the programs? Why is there no independent audit of the entire system to see what is really going on?

There will be at least 700 teacher vacancies in the Clark County School District at the opening bell. Nevada will continue to rank at the bottom of education. The so-called union — the Clark County Education Association — has done nothing for its members. Hundreds have resigned this year, and there will be more to come.

Walter Goldstein

Henderson

Defending Hafen

Eric Hartley has written a series of articles seeming to reveal some inappropriate or nefarious behavior by Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen, with reports on family members working for the city and Mayor Hafen’s house being burglarized.

Most recently, there was an article about plumbing work done at his daughter’s house and how she paid the bill. So what if she paid by check? She probably needed to so she would have proof she paid, because someone would be checking. And putting a picture of her house in the paper? Please!

Marly Henry

Henderson

Changing moral climates

Nadia Romeo’s letter regarding the Confederate flag referred to the treatment of Jews under the Nazi regime (“Flag symbolism,” Aug. 2 Review-Journal). The Nazis attempted to eradicate all Jews in Germany and in the countries they occupied.

Does Ms. Romeo truly believe the people who lived and fought under the Confederate flag were attempting to eradicate all slaves under their control? This is complete nonsense. To put the issue in perspective, we must understand that most developed countries at that time accepted slavery and had accepted it for centuries. However, the moral climate was beginning to change and some countries were abolishing slavery, putting pressure on the United States to do the same.

The people who lived in slave-owning states believed their rights were being violated if they were forced to abolish slavery, just as the revolutionary movement of the colonies felt its rights were being violated under the British crown. When the colonists won the Revolutionary War, no one proposed changing the names of states or cities that were named after cities or royalty of a country that had oppressed them.

I mention this because there is a movement to change the names of some highways named after Confederate generals. It is very difficult to judge someone’s moral standards from a distance of 150 years, given that our standards have evolved over time to the politically correct ones we have today. Same-sex marriage and many other standards are accepted today. In the future, people may wonder what took so long for those changes to occur.

The atonement Ms. Romeo mentioned (the post-World War II German generation working on kibbutz in Israel) is commendable. The enormous number of casualties suffered by both sides in the Civil War (750,000) could be considered atonement. This war could have probably been avoided if the Union had simply expelled the slave states and allowed them to form their own Confederacy, with the condition that they could rejoin the Union if they abolished slavery — which they eventually would have done.

Anthony J. Marinelli

Las Vegas