Education Committee deserves failing grade
To the editor:
I was horrified to read that the Senate Education Committee has approved a bill that would allow students to graduate from high school even if they can't pass the math portion of the proficiency exam ("Vote helps math-challenged," Saturday Review-Journal).
Why go to school at all if you can graduate without learning the basics? And why should we worry about funding schools if they are not required to teach students the basics? Do they think our students are too dumb to learn or the teachers incapable of teaching math?
The Senate Education Committee deserves an "F."
Julia Sills
Las Vegas
Don't need money
To the editor:
The Saturday article "Vote helps math-challenged" is the perfect example of why our educational system is failing. It has nothing to do with money. It has to do with demanding that our children learn the curriculum.
Why even have a proficiency exam? As students fail more parts of the exam, just allow them to pass if they fail two parts, then three parts, etc.
If Nevada would cut school administrative expenses instead of laying off teachers, and if Nevada would stop social promotion in all grades levels, we would see a vast improvement in the education of our children without spending more money.
Nevada should also enact illegal immigration laws similar to those in Oklahoma and Arizona to save money on the health care and education of illegals, which would also help balance the budget and reduce education cuts.
We don't need more money for education. We need more education for our money.
Tom Jones
Las Vegas
No results
To the editor:
Is it myopia or a lack of brain cells in the folks who keep agitating for higher taxes for our schools? Aren't they aware that you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip, what with the state of our economy?
Additionally, since I moved to Nevada, funding for the schools has been going up and up, but the results keep going down and down.
And maybe if the teachers were allowed to apply a little more discipline, we would get better results.
Esmael E. Candelaria
Henderson
Why learn?
To the editor:
The stupidity of our bleeding-heart elected officials never ceases to amaze me ("Vote helps math-challenged," Saturday). It also proves that they have all achieved the Peter Principle, which holds that everyone reaches their level of incompetence, eventually.
Rather than expect our children to learn what they are taught and pass the proficiency tests to prove what they have learned, our politicians have decided to lower the requirements of the test. What exactly is this teaching them? Is it any wonder that American graduates cannot compete against the students graduating in other industrialized nations?
When it takes, in some cases, six times to pass a test, there is something wrong with our public education system. Allowing our elected officials to change the finish line after the race has started because we are afraid to hurt our chilrdren's psyches, is wrong.
Kathleen M. Stone
Pahrump
Thank your union
To the editor:
In response to Sunday's first-person commentary by Clark County School District teacher Justin Brecht, "Teacher of the year rewarded with pink slip":
It is sad that we are losing a highly qualified teacher such as Mr. Brecht, but he misses the true cause of his dismissal.
He states jobs are protected based on the time teachers have spent in the building, and lawmakers should do something to change the system. But he is being dismissed because his union negotiated and demands the protection of seniority.
Whether you are for the teachers unions or against them, you cannot deny that they are the driving force for the system being what it is. Mr. Brecht should register his grievance with the union. That's what doomed him.
Mike Piercy
Henderson
