Keys to improving education
Re: “True or false: Union backs school choice,” May 12 David Harsanyi column.
What’s ailing education, argues David Harsanyi, are entrenched unions and an absence of competition. Please allow me to stifle a yawn. These vanilla pillars of conservative thought – destroying the teachers union and applying free-enterprise fixes – are applied with such regularity and predictability as solutions for our schools that one supposes there’s a royalty-free conservative columnist’s crib sheet somewhere on the Internet.
The real fix lies elsewhere. No amount of union-busting, curriculum-modifying, CSAP-taking, choice-inducing or voucher-proselytizing will change anything meaningful about the quality of education one’s children are apt to receive from organized institutions – public, private or somewhere in between.
Here’s a radical notion: Schools are generally decent. Most feature intelligent and dedicated teachers, reasonably instructive textbooks, serviceable chalkboards and the occasional trip to the principal’s office. To improve education, stop trying to finesse the school system. The hard work of learning happens at home. So long as parents are entranced by “American Idol” rather than their daughter’s homework lesson about Shay’s Rebellion, there’s not much any school is going to be able to do to help little Jessica flourish in an increasingly competitive world.
Stewart Schley, Englewood
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Shooting of Denver police officer
Re: “Officials: Verifying suspect’s immigrant status wasn’t vital,” May 12 news story.
It is not wrong to feel outrage at the murder of a police officer. It is not wrong to oppose illegal immigration to the U.S. It is wrong to mix the two issues so people feel outrage at illegal immigration and illegal immigrants.
Rep. Tom Tancredo and others who mix the two are using the publicity and emotion of the murder of a police officer by an illegal immigrant to push their anti-immigration agenda. Immigration policy in the nation and Denver should be discussed intelligently. Keep emotion out of it.
Charles E. Stuart, Centennial
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Now that the funeral of Denver police officer Donald Young is over and the white-hot rage against his killer has cooled just a bit, we can ask some hard questions about the case.
Young was killed by a man who does not fit the profile of a killer, if we can believe the media descriptions of Raul Garcia-Gomez. He was an ordinary young man and had no criminal record. He was a father and a hard worker. He may have been an illegal immigrant, but that does not make him a killer.
But what caused this dishwasher to become so enraged that he would commit murder? On the night of the murder, Garcia-Gomez had been inside Salon Ocampo as an invited guest of the hosts giving the baptismal party. He was there with his girlfriend and baby daughter. Why was he denied admission to the salon when he stepped out and tried to come back in?Twice he tried to come back in, but was reportedly grabbed by the neck and arm by one of the officers and ejected. Why did this happen? Why was an invited guest treated this way by the police officers? What criteria did the officers use to justify this treatment of Raul Garcia-Gomez?
Whatever happened between Garcia-Gomez and the officers does not justify the shooting of Young and Bishop, but the question still remains: What caused the deadly provocation that turned a peaceful young man into a killer?
J.J. Barrera, Colorado Springs
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Re: “Cop buried with respect, grim resolve,” May 15 Diane Carman column.
A heartfelt thanks to Diane Carman for addressing the pain and loss suffered by Donald “Donnie” Young’s 7-year-old son, Tanner Segura. In the extensive coverage of the heinous killing of Young and the tremendous loss to his wife and daughters of a husband and father, a young boy was all but forgotten.
In all the complexity of life as experienced in the blood and guts of everyday living and loving, we must ask about Tanner’s loss, beginning with the fact that he is Tanner Segura, not Tanner Young. As the governor, the mayor and Archbishop Charles Chaput offered condolences to Young’s daughters and the community at large, nothing was said to Tanner.
In the years ahead, as we probe the loss of parental love and affection for Young’s daughters, may we not forget that a young boy has also suffered the loss of his father, his love, his affection, his emotional and psychological support. As Tanner grows into adolescence, who in the community will be there for him to heal the emotional pain caused by his abandonment and rejection as a son? As Tanner told his first-grade classmates: “My daddy died. He was the police officer who got shot at the baptism.”
Lee Kaspari, Lakewood
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Re: “Another May 8 killing still without a suspect,” May 16 news story.
A list of facts regarding the murders of Detective Donnie Young and Luis Romero – something The Post and most other “news” media are seldom interested in anymore:
1.) Both became murder victims on the same day.
2.) Neither were in any way heroic leading up to their totally unexpected deaths.
3.) Both deaths may be considered tragic by those who knew and loved each of them.
4.) And most important, from a factual perspective, Young’s death does not deserve any more media attention or law enforcement effort in bringing his killer to justice than does Romero’s.
Tim Flynn, Denver
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Independence Institute
Re: “Golden think tank dives into a new fray,” May 11 Al Knight column.
Al Knight’s loving article about the Independence Institute continued journalism’s practice of calling the organization a “think tank.”
It is, in fact, an ultra-right-wing ad agency; the thinking there is devoted to how best to advertise positions of the corporate/Christian political agenda with arguments from 19th- and early 20th-century Social Darwinist anti-labor, anti- social and anti-government essays and speeches. Its unqualified (unthinking) support of Recorporcan (formerly Republican) goals is infamous among thinking people. I hope it is as unsuccessful in its efforts to keep us suffering under Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights ideology as it may be in persuading Coloradans to return to the 19th century oppressive, capitalistic oligarchy.
Daniel W. Brickley, Littleton
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CT scans of King Tut
Re: “Tut’s face emerges from CT scans in 3-nation project,” May 11 news story.
I’m sure some will find joy in finally knowing what (we think) King Tut looked like, yet I am amazed that three countries (the U.S., France and Egypt) would have “teams of forensic artists and scientists” spend countless hours and dollars to come up with their determination of what he looked like. This was a 19-year-old boy who died 3,300 years ago with no significant accomplishments or contribution to society. Why on earth would three countries waste the talent and money on a project like this when there are so many other worthwhile projects that can and should be undertaken?
Jim Malec, Littleton
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Bible and gay marriage
Is there anyone out there who is able to help me? I want to be a good American, but I am so confused. I frequently hear religious leaders speak of how Leviticus justifies a stance against same-sex marriage and homosexuality: They say it is an abomination and we need a constitutional amendment banning such behavior. But in Leviticus, it also says it is an abomination to eat shellfish – and that there is nothing wrong with owning slaves as long as they are from a neighboring country. To be a good American, do I need to press my elected officials to pass laws outlawing the consumption of lobsters and oysters and legalizing the owning of Canadian and Mexican slaves?
Tom McMurray, Crestone
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