LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Revisit education outlays

Put “education” in the title of a bill and who would dare oppose it?

Would you believe that there is waste in education? I have seen massive amounts of free food thrown into the garbage, including unopened milk cartons and untouched fruit.

The two largest Southern states, Florida and Georgia, have 10 times the population of Arkansas, yet Arkansas has more school districts than the two states combined. Florida has 67 while Arkansas has 305. It does not take much of an imagination to visualize all those superintendents, vice superintendents, assistant superintendents, secretaries, vehicles, conferences, offices and budgets.

The lion’s share of the Arkansas budget goes to education. How are we doing? You have seen the ads touting Arkansas’ 10th place ranking. Maryland, with one school district per county, is ranked first.

But here is the rest of the story. In the same report, Arkansas is ranked 41st in ACT scores, 46th in “chance of success” and 34th in K-12 achievement. More than half of Arkansas college-bound students take remediation courses. Factors figured into those rankings include policies and spending.

The more government control and the more a state spends, the better the score in that report. Is it time to stop throwing money at education? Education is not about money, it is about learning.

GENE McVAY Fort Smith

Charters falling short

In a recent editorial straining to find import in an “eye-popping” 0.5 percent drop in student enrollment [in Pulaski County school districts], you laughably said that charter schools were the “most promising” solution. What irony.

No solution has been more abundant with promises and so destitute with performances. While you cite some pseudo-experts who play hide the-pea with strange data manipulations, the real experts at Stanford University showed everyone what charter school performance really was.

The study revealed that only one out of six charter schools provides superior education opportunities for their students. Nearly half of the charter schools nationwide have results no different from the local public school options. Most damning of all, over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning results significantly worse than a student would have realized had they stayed in traditional public schools. So the odds are 5-to-1 that your kids are better off staying at a public school.

More and more, it become obvious that your editorial writers are just propaganda shills for charter schools. Propaganda has always been about promises, not performance.

JAKE TIDMORE Little Rock

Blame ‘uncertainties’

The conventional wisdom that seems irrational to letter writer James Vandergrift regarding the nation’s economic situation is understandable.

He lists talking points as being in conflict. He says that the president is faulted for not lowering the high unemployment rate. Yet, the policies set in place by the president and Congress create a certain or uncertain perception of what business can expect in the future. Future health care costs and taxation costs created much uncertainty for those who own and manage businesses.

Vandergrift says that business leaders are given a pass for not hiring while making unprecedented profits. My response it that the “uncertainties” led them to forgo hiring. The workers they kept worked harder and more efficiently. Productivity was increased and profits went up. He says the president is being called a socialist for advocating legislation to regulate business. Regulations that enhance competition are not socialistic in nature; regulations that control management of everyday affairs reflect socialistic thinking.

Do the rich or do consumers create jobs? Consumers get their buying power from their jobs. The “super rich” create a small percentage of the jobs. He says the nation’s biggest banks, with one outstanding exception, are a whole pathetic issue unto themselves. Greed, it would appear, was their driving interest.

RICHARD C. CHEWNING Fayetteville

Pay what’s owed first

Re recent city pay raises: Here I sit. Everything I touch costs more today than two years ago. I have had no increase in any income, e.g., Social Security, pension, retirement accounts.

I am lucky that I still get them, or so I told. The world is going broke, unemployment is out of sight, and those who are collecting are due to be cut off any day. Those with a job have had their hours cut, or their pay.

But some can vote themselves a raise.

What’s wrong with paying some bills? Maybe those who feel underpaid these days ought to try the unemployment line. We all need or want a raise, but when my taxes are paying for your raise and then some service is cut (one I personally may or may not need, but someone does or is using it) because we don’t have the money, something is bad wrong with this picture.

The time is past for us to get real. I have had to make some cuts and so should all of you. I would say the majority of Arkansas are just a paycheck away from going broke anyway. Let’s pay our bills first. I have to.

R.K. MILLER Lonoke

Feature appreciated

It was refreshing to see a High Profile section that did not feature a representative of Arkansas’ social or economic elite. The profile of Rev. Graig Cowart might be described as according recognition to the morally elite.

Cowart and his parishioners seem to know how to convert words like “love your neighbor as yourself” into meaningful actions. Such transformations are worthy of our recognition and emulation.

BETTYE CALDWELL Little Rock

A belated welcome

I read the newspaper this morning. There were many stories that spoke of lies, theft, greed, murder, selfishness and low morals. These made me angry and sad. What happened to honesty, service above self and dignity?

One story stood out, the one about the body of the airman killed in 1943 being returned home. Thank God for the men who continued to work the case. Sixty-seven years later, the remains of an American hero come home with honor.

The Department of Defense’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command employs 600 specialists around the world who search for and recover service members from all conflicts.

Welcome home, Tech. Sgt. Hollis R. Smith. To all those who aided in this search and others also, well done, thou good and faithful servants.

ANITA C. GATZKE Little Rock

Do away with lottery

Amen to the editorial writer on “Step right up, suckers.” I’m not known for agreeing with much in a conservative-leaning newspaper, butI must give you credit. Ernie Passailaigue and his crew are making themselves king and court of Arkansas and I’ll happily be first in line to depose them.

We “liberals” also want the best for Arkansas and all of its people. The lottery people have no vested interest in anything but lining their collective pockets at the cost of the well-beingof our good citizens. This was a bad idea from the get-go and I say folks should rethink their votes and throw out the lottery and its commission.

CAROLYN B. MATHENY Little Rock

Much unreasonable

Recently, you printed a column, “Screaming at screeners,” by Pat Lynch. Now I will destroy his opinion.

Pat stated that “if it means defeating freedom-hating terrorists, good Americans should be willing to give up every one of those so called rights that the clock-stoppers get so hung up on.” If we give up every one of those rights, what is left to defend? America is an idea, not a place.

Lynch also asks “what demand of government could ever possibly be resisted by some mere citizen as being unreasonable.” I can name a million, like anyone else with a partially functioning brain. He also says that warrants, oaths and probable cause are “simply out of place in our fast moving world”!

ADAM CLARK Cabot

Blame Bush’s ADDI

Letter writer Thomas Pope states that a the threat of a new recession emerged in George W. Bush’s second term primarily due to the Democrats’ sub-prime loan initiatives.

Data from the 2007 Mortgage Market Statistical Annual suggests a different conclusion. Sub-prime originations rose from $35 billion in 1994 to $138 billion in Bill Clinton’s last year. During Bush’s first three years, subprime mortgages stayed within the 7.4-8.4 percent of total mortgage originations range and totaled $718 billion. However, in 2004-06, sub-prime mortgages averaged 19.9 percent of total mortgage originations and totaled $1.8 trillion. What caused this rapid growth in sub-prime lending?

In June 2002, Bush obtained a financial commitment of $440 billion from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to begin the home ownership part of his “ownership society.” In December 2003, his American Dream Downpayment Initiative was voted into law. The ADDI, in addition to other Bush initiatives, and financial assistance from Fannie and Freddie enabled people to buy homes with little to no down payment. Bush’s vision of 5.5 million new home owners by 2010 markedly increased the growth of sub-prime lending.

If the recession due to sub-prime loan initiatives began in late 2007 as financial information indicates, the defaulting loans causing the recession were written under Bush initiatives.

KENNETH R. WEBER Greenbrier

Get rid of the BCS

Why doesn’t your sports department start a movement to rid the country of the fraud that is the Bowl Championship Series? Instead of talking about which silly numbers to manipulate to come up with a false one and two, why don’t we simply have a playoff system like every other sport in existence?

Oh, I know we don’t have the courage to fight the bowl system and the haves who continue to tell us how difficult it would be to actually find a playoff champion. Keep writing about silly numbers, Wally. It is all smoke and mirrors anyway.

JOHN LEONARD Fayetteville

Feedback Proposal is absurd

One hundred and 50 million dollars for a computerized billing system? Absurd!

There are about 3 million Arkansans. Is state Medicaid director Eugene Gessow really proposing spending $50 per person just to develop-repeat, develop-an accounting system that will track expenses and do billing? Absurd!

And that would not include the operating cost. Absurd!

Use existing resources. Give the project to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock College of Business. The students and faculty of that school are more than qualified to do the job, and for a fraction of the cost.

Recent headline in a UALR news release: “UALR College of Business Lauds First Top-Tier U.S. News & World Report Ranking” It would be a great project for the school and would create the opportunity to draw on the computer science department as well.

Use existing resources. Fifty dollars per person just to develop an accounting system that would track Medicaid expenses and do billing? Absurd!

JOHN R. SCHMEDEMAN Hot Springs Village

Nothing to debate

Ethical standards in our legislators should be a given, not a matter for debate.

YVONNE SAMONS Little Rock