Better management for Colorado schools
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, in an interview about the status of public school education, said, “Public education is a failure.” He went on to say that the primary reason for its failure is bad management. I have studied the management of Colorado schools and my findings are in complete agreement with this statement. We have bad school management in Colorado. Following are five significant findings:
1. There are numerous laws specifying how school districts are to operate; however, there are few enforcement or policing laws.
2. The management structures of the school districts are very haphazard and have the appearance of being formed with no knowledge of how a successful business operates. As it is now structured, the emphasis and focus is not on education of the students.
3. School districts are large corporations with multimillion-dollar budgets and hundreds of employees, and their general managers (superintendents) do not have the training or experience to direct their many business activities.
4. Local control of schools in Colorado is a myth. Individual schools have small operating budgets that are handed down by the district administrations and, for the most part, what they teach is dictated by the district administration. Local schools have been stripped of financial and other resources by an ever- increasing district administration. If local control existed, principals, teachers and parents would be making the decisions that meet their children’s needs and they would have financing to back their choices.
Spending more money and/or testing more is not the solution to our education problems. We need a management shift that provides the management that is required and deserved.
Darwyn Herbst, Niwot
President’s plan to “surge” troops in Iraq
Since the change in Iraq policy mandated by the midterm election was, to any reasonable observer, not that of a “surge” but that of a drawdown of troops, why would President Bush interpret these elections in the directly opposite direction? The only explanation for this is that he doesn’t really care what the American electorate wants – or that his decision is being colored here by something that President Eisenhower famously branded, way back in 1962, as “the military-industrial complex.”
Everyone knows nowadays that people “have complexes.” What is not so well-known is that complexes can have us. The negative effect of a complex is commonly experienced as an impairment in one’s freedom to be reasonable. In a place of sound judgment and an appropriate-feeling response, those who are possessed by a complex react according to what the complex dictates, so that they end up losing control of their own destiny – as well as that of the nation they may happen to be leading.
Is not the president’s judgment being clouded by the same complex bundle of extravagant desires and fears of humiliation that Eisenhower once saw as one of the gravest threats to the future of the republic?
Joel Brence, Aspen
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It’s way past time to cease the endless political prattle about how to “win” the fiasco in Iraq. It’s flat stupid to send in more troops to be blown up by IEDs. In my opinion, it’s time to bring the troops home now and give Iraq back to the Iraqis. What is there to win in Iraq? What is this nebulous “victory”? If we “win,” do we get to keep Iraq, or do we have to share it with the imaginary “coalition of the willing”?
Lillian Norgren, Denver
Price gouging vs. free markets
Re: “Remembering Alamo rental at $950 a day,” Jan. 5 Al Lewis column.
Setting prices some people feel are too high violates no one’s rights – there is no such thing as a right to cheap car rentals. Moreover, “price gouging” has no objective meaning or definition – it is in the eyes of the beholder. People who complain about “price gouging” merely want a product at a lower price than it’s being sold for.
“Price gouging” laws are like the sword of Damocles, hanging over the heads of businessmen, who at any time may be found guilty of the “crime” of selling at market prices that politicians deem too high. Businessmen should not have to live under this constant threat; as owners of the products they sell, they have the moral right to set the prices.
David Holcberg, Irvine, Calif.
Digging out in Denver
OK, the city was ill-prepared for the first storm. It was more prepared for the second one, maybe as prepared as Denver gets considering this is not a city that gets and keeps a great deal of snow. To all the people who are blaming the mayor, let me remind you he didn’t cause the storm and, yes, he probably is doing the best he can with the equipment and resources at hand.
Enough about that. What about all those property owners who can’t be bothered to shovel their walks or the RTD stops in front of their property?
I live in the Washington Park area. I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon. The owners of modest older bungalows seem to be on top of the shoveling chore. The owners of the new pop-tops, scrape-offs and mini-mansions not only can’t be bothered to shovel, they can’t be bothered to hire it done. C’mon! If you’ve got all that disposable income and can afford that house, pay someone to remove your snow.
Gioia Cardelli, Denver
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The recent snows delivered to the Denver area were handled well enough, except for the obvious: When anyone parks their car in their driveway, why don’t they park it with the rear bumper just inside their sidewalk? That way, all they have to do is shovel the snow from the walk and the nearby street, instead of having to shovel whatever distance they leave between the car and the sidewalk.
Clarence Gushurst, Denver
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As a native of the Denver area, I take great interest in reading about current events in the state of Colorado on denverpost.com. However, I felt compelled to write a letter regarding the storms that affected much of Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska.
I currently live in south-central Nebraska. While we didn’t receive the same amount of snow as Denver did, we did get hit with large amounts of freezing rain. These rains have caused massive power outages throughout the area. Many in this area are now on about their 11th day without power. My house was without power for three days, during which time the temperature inside my house got down to 35 degrees. Others in this area have had it much worse.
I have a very simple message to those of the instant-gratification mindset who are moaning and groaning about snow removal: Quit your complaining. At least you could cook food.
Brent Orme, Holdrege, Neb.
Does Bush have authority to open your mail?
Re: “Bush claims right to open people’s mail,” Jan. 4 news story.
I am outraged that President Bush claims that he has the right to open people’s mail. What gives him that authority? The pertinent law on the subject, Title 18, Section 1701 of the U.S. Code, reads as follows: “Whoever knowingly and wilfully obstructs, or retards the passage of mail, or any carrier, or conveyance carrying the mail, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.”
Therefore, neither the president nor anyone else is excluded under the provisions of the law. If Congress wanted to give him such power, it would have to grant it to him pursuant to the requirements of the U.S. Constitution. There is nothing that grants him such a power within that Constitution. To the contrary, Article 4 of the Constitution prohibits the “unlawful search and seizure” of all Americans.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon Congress to see to it that the president acts within his restricted executive authority and no more.
Albert L. and Patricia A. Maise, Northglenn
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