All alone in the woods
It seems Shep Smith is the only anchor at Fox News who speaks truth to power.
He doesn't spew the conspiracy theories so popular there. Indeed, he refutes them. He has totally debunked the caravan conspiracy story. Earlier he did the same for the Hillary Russian uranium conspiracy story so popular with those on the right.
Smith must be the lone ranger in an atmosphere where his colleagues spout nothing but falsehoods.
With the exception of Smith, it appears Fox is the source for all the fake news we are bombarded with on a daily basis.
BETTY McSWAIN
Fort Smith
Modify unwieldy act
I recently retired after 31 years of serving as a classroom teacher and administrator in Arkansas public schools. Most of these years were spent in high-poverty schools in Little Rock School District. As an administrator, I used the Arkansas Teacher Fair Dismissal Act to terminate ineffective teachers. It is a major expenditure of administrators' time and is tremendously unwieldy.
Only principals can document a teacher to "get out or get better." When this process is undertaken, morale increases among effective teachers. Teachers who are mediocre will work to improve when they see the process being implemented. All teachers in a building know who the poor teachers are.
Any public school teacher or administrator will tell you that student achievement expectations are moving targets. The test changes. The cut scores change. Student populations change.
George W. Bush came to Little Rock Parkview on Aug. 29, 2002, to speak on the No Child Left Behind Act. The next morning your paper's headline was that the Stanford Nine test would be used to determine "failing schools." Thus began the journey that continues today.
Our high-poverty schools need the best teachers. Removing due process in our D and F schools greatly increases uncertainty and reduces excellent teachers' desire to teach in these schools.
I recommend that Mr. Key work with our Legislature and the AEA to modify the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act for all Arkansas school districts.
Modifications will allow principals to better perform their most important function--creating and maintaining a team of quality educators.
JANE HARKEY
Little Rock
Let state teams play
Last Saturday I attended the Razorback game with friends, and an interesting conversation started. The subject, which I asked for a reason, was why do UA and ASU not play each other every year.
Responses were: Frank Broyles wouldn't allow it (don't we have a new decision-maker at UA?); UA has nothing to gain by playing ASU. Really? What do they have to gain by playing Tulsa and paying them a reported $1.4 million?
While I am not a native Arkansan, I guess I am missing something.
Why there is not a groundswell movement to have the two teams play every year is beyond me. Can anyone out there explain? I am for the two schools playing each other every year in War Memorial Stadium!
Anyone else agree?
RICHARD RENNER
Little Rock
Be a part of solution
As Americans, we have become students of how to succeed in life by lying and cheating, becoming more every day like the things we say that we hate. We are asleep at the wheel when it comes to our ability to stand together as Americans and oppose that which destroys democracy.
If we continue to remove ourselves from the process of helping restore the things that were left in our care, then maybe we never were committed to begin with. The hatred that exists among us is certainly by design; it is meant to divide and separate us. We go to our churches and synagogues and tell ourselves it's not our fault.
You look at your children and grandchildren, and you pray and ask God to take care of them and keep them safe, yet you won't vote on the things that will help protect them. You simply become the great pretender and blend in with the crowd, and you say to yourself, "Who knows?"
We have become much too comfortable with the sin that so easily beset us. I will do as much as I can to help our nation. I don't want to be part of the problem, I want to be part of the solution. How about you?
JACKIE JOHNSON
Scott
Friends like these ...
Fifteen seems to be the magic number in the dictatorship kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
There were 15 Saudis among the 19 terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11. The same number of Saudis also allegedly were involved in the recent death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a permanant American resident.
The official Saudi position is that the journalist died during a fight at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, but the Turkish government says he was murdered. It adds that one of the 15 Saudis brought along a bone saw, presumably to saw up his body after his murder. The journalist's only crime reportedly was to criticize the Saudi dictatorship.
President Donald Trump says we must be careful not to upset the Saudis or we might lose a huge arms contract which could greatly enrich American arms contractors and produce more jobs.
The United States and Russia have for many years been the world's greatest arms purveyors. Unfortunately, many of these weapons are used in civil wars which Trump early in his presidency promised to stop our involvement in.
I commend both Republican and Democrat members of Congress for asking President Trump to stop all arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which allegedly uses them to further its current war in Yemen.
With friends like Saudi Arabia, we certainly don't need more enemies.
VERNON McDANIEL
Ozark
Editorial on 11/02/2018