VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY

STATE NEEDS QUALIFIED TEACHERS

Editor:

I was glad to hear that Gov. Brian Sandoval feels it is important to address education in Nevada. However, the most critical element required to turn education around in Nevada was not addressed. The real crisis is the state’s inability to hire and retain highly qualified teachers for every classroom in Nevada.

Already Clark County School District is short around 600 licenses staff members. Churchill County has been short three teachers all year, and I know other rural districts have not been able to fill licensed positions in their districts.

To compound this problem, teachers are quitting in the middle of the school year. Excellent teachers are leaving in the middle of their careers to seek other opportunities. It is also well documented that many new teachers leave the profession within five years. Perhaps saddest of all is when teachers are telling students to choose some other career.

Until this crisis in attaining and keeping qualified professionals in the classroom is addressed by the state, there will be little change in the quality of education offered in Nevada. It is critical that the state determines and addresses the forces behind the lack of highly qualified teachers in every classroom in the state.

Becky Dodd

Fallon

DISAPPOINTED IN NDE, SCHOOL BOARD

Editor:

Good editorial on Common Core and the lack of responsibility shown by the Nevada Department of Education and the Churchill County School District.

Mr. Erquiaga and NDE ... Mrs. Sheldon and the Board, You shirked your responsibilities and stiffed the taxpayers, and I am disappointed.

M. Sanderson

Fallon

THE INCINERATION OF LT. MUATH al-KASEASBEH

At the White House National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, February 5, 2015, President Barack Obama chided Christians against mounting their moral “high horse” to condemn the Islamic State’s burning of Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh – alive – down to a pile of smoldering charcoal. The president’s objective in so doing was to cancel out recent acts of Islamic State evil by overlaying it with “Christian cruelty” from a thousand years ago.

The only reason to invoke the history of man’s inhumanity to man, from hundreds or thousands of years ago, is to measure how much we have civilized our behavior coming forward into the here and now – but not so for President Obama. The objective of his reach back into the antiquity of “slavery” and the “Crusades” is to beat America over the head with slavery-guilt, and to establish “moral equivalency” between the behavior of the Islamic State today and the behavior of Christians from a thousand years ago.

If anyone is on a moral “high horse” in the matter of judging the evil of the Islamic State burning to death a living person, it is President Barack Obama – who refuses, yet again, to condemn the evil of radical Islamic militants.

Orlis Trone

Fernley

GOVERNOR SOUNDS LIKE A DEMOCRAT

Editor:

Weighing in on governor’s plan for education:

The governor wants more than $400 million in new taxes for education. To pay for this, he wants to raise taxes on business — and not just a little.

The governor sounds more like a Democrat than a Republican. People in power do not seem to understand that businesses do not pay taxes; they pass the increased cost on to the public.

If the governor wants to run for the Senate against Reid, he should change his party affiliation to Democrat and run against Reid in the Democratic primary. I am sure he will not get the vote of conservative Republicans.

Gene Carhart

Carson City

THROWING MONEY AWAY AT EDUCATION

How tragic that our governor wants to increase school spending. He and others believe that increase school spending will generate a better education for our children. Can anyone produce evidence that increasing spending has bettered our schools? No! In fact, there is a perfect correlation between increased spending and worsening results. The answer is more spending? Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

Only when we dismantle the political ­union education complex will we see better school performance. The unions protect jobs and income; politicians seek more money and control. Neither do any good for the kids. Parents should have school choice in a truly free marketplace.

Sell the schools to private enterprise and have them compete to provide for the best education. Use the excess money to secure the current teacher pensions. Let schools that fail go out of business and those succeed thrive.

Government should be out of the education business. What we have been doing has been an abject failure. And it will continue to be until we allow a market based educational platform. Let’s make Nevada No. 1 in education.

David Cantwell

Genoa