True heroes toil in our public schools
To the editor:
In response to Vin Suprynowicz’s Sunday column, "We must destroy the government schools":
I doubt Mr. Suprynowicz has ever set a foot in an American classroom. If he did, he would see dedicated, caring people, teaching from locally selected schoolbooks and curricula, teaching because they care about children and are trying to help them grow into decent folk who can read and write and count.
Why else would they go to four years of college to become such low-paid workers, year after year giving up personal time to grade papers, prepare lessons and attend meetings? Private employers cannot get away with the impositions that are made upon public school teachers.
The woman in Henderson, about whose negative school experience Mr. Suprynowicz goes on and on about, was a cheap shot — and not typical.
More typical is harassment from ignorant and negligent parents with misplaced anger that teachers, not students, have to endure. The parent who does show up to school meetings is king, not the educators.
The greatness of America is that people from all backgrounds grow up from an early age sitting next to each other while learning the basics of education. No one is turned away, no matter how messed up or obnoxious or difficult to teach. No matter what his religious or political preference.
Mr. Suprynowicz seems to prefer private schools, with their ability to choose and select students, shutting the door to the handicapped (whose education requires expensive specialists) and those with a different appearance or a different viewpoint. His preference seems to be for private schools that can skew their curricula according to his own viewpoint.
Private schools can select books that leave out essential facts, books that embellish their biases, and can present them as universal truths. Their students are the ones who all turn out stamped from the same mold. Mr. Suprynowicz’s private schools are like the old government schools of the USSR. The schools I attended in the good ole US of A are not.
Let’s give recognition and support to the true heroes those who teach in our public schools.
laura cox
LAS VEGAS
Property defense
To the editor
In reference to your Wednesday editorial, "Vigilante justice in Texas," it might be time for our society to reconsider the "property is not worth killing someone over" doctrine that the editorial seems to endorse.
Fact is, it takes work and time out of a finite life to earn the money to acquire property. When somebody steals from me, they are taking away that time I invested, and I can’t get it back
A victim of a theft has therefore been murdered — their life very effectively shortened, to a limited extent.
The "it’s just property" mantra basically derives from a socialist-agenda mind-set, the dismissal of a sacred right in our society — that one’s private property is one’s own.
So I say more power to that neighbor. It’s not just property those criminals were carting away. It was also that person’s life.
Charles E. Fuller Jr.
HENDERSON
Right thing
To the editor:
I take exception to your Wednesday editorial regarding Joe Horn dispensing "justice" in Texas. You state that he was "wrong." Perhaps in a society where the crime rate is exceptionally low and the justice system just isn’t a revolving door for criminals, Mr. Horn may have been wrong in his actions. In today’s real world, however, Mr. Horn made certain there would be two less repeat offenders.
Mr. Horn had called the police upon seeing these criminals committing the burglary. But, like here in Las Vegas, apparently the police were too busy taking reports of burglaries already committed to respond to one in progress.
Mr. Horn did the right thing all right. He told them not to move, and they did. Boom! Problem solved.
Just think of it; if everyone did as Mr. Horn and actually confronted criminals in the commission of their crimes, within a year the crime rate would drop drastically. No sir, Mr. Horn should be commended, not condemned. It is the apathetic thinking that, "The police will protect us and the justice system will ensure the criminals, once caught, will be rehabilitated into good citizens" that has led to the skyrocketing crime rate we have today.
I would be proud to have Mr. Horn as a neighbor.
Mike Palmer
LAS VEGAS
Veterans card
To the editor:
In his Wednesday letter to the editor, Steve Sanson suggests that all Veterans Administration hospitals be eliminated and a veteran insurance card be implemented. It is interesting to note that only one of the candidates now running for president of the United States has suggested a similar plan.
Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico has a plan that calls for the issuance of a Heroes Health Card, which would allow all veterans to receive health care at any hospital, clinic or doctor’s office.
The governor, however, does not plan to close the Veterans Administration facilities, but to fully fund them.
The Heroes Health Cards would allow choice and the means for those veterans who do not live near the VA facilities to receive the care that they deserve. Furthermore, the plan would fully cover the needs of those veterans who suffer from mental trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.
It is to our country’s shame that we have not given this type of care to our veterans.
Juan Valdez
Marcia Valdez
LAS VEGAS
THE WRITERS ARE VOLUNTEERS ON THE RICHARDSON CAMPAIGN.
Big spender?
To the editor:
In your Nov. 14 editorial, "Another Bush veto," you justifiably laud our president for his attention to fiscal responsibility.
I really believe it would be prudent to beef up security in and around the Treasury Department. Why? Someone is stealing our tax dollars — and, as a result, our federal debt is at an all-time high.
And as you point out, it can’t be our tight-fisted, fiscally responsible president.
james m. donaldson
HENDERSON
Lost opportunity
To the editor:
I read with interest the article in Wednesday’s Review-Journal about the Legacy High School students using a pizza to learn about democracy through a caucus. My son will be participating in a similar exercise at his high school this week.
What wasn’t included in the article is that this event was originally to include discussions about actual presidential candidates and issues. These senior government students will actually be voting in the 2008 election, but someone at the Clark County School District decided the real topics might be "too controversial" so switched to pizza. I think a valuable teaching opportunity has been lost.
Students today need to learn appropriate behavior to have a respectful discussion with those who agree and disagree with their political views. This caucus, as originally planned, would have offered students that opportunity. Now it doesn’t prepare them to make an informed decision on whom to vote for in their first presidential election. All this caucus prepares students to do is to order a good pizza.
In an effort to avoid all possible controversy, the school district has so watered down this activity that it is a waste of time.
A. Diggins
HENDERSON
