A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
Reporter-Herald, Loveland, Colo., and Daily Times-Call, Longmont, on the need for the U.S. to send a message to Saudi Arabia:
In the twisted world of the Middle East, not everything makes sense. Yet providing $20 billion in high-tech weaponry and military aid to Saudi Arabia makes less sense than most.
This fall, Congress will likely be notified that the federal government will authorize the sale of air, sea and land weapons, including satellite-controlled bombs, to Saudi Arabia. Yet many high-ranking members of the current administration are expressing misgivings because Saudi Arabia, long a U.S. ally in the region, has been less than helpful in our nation’s plight in Iraq. In fact, since the U.S. invasion of that country, the distance between the U.S. and the Saudi government has grown wider and wider.
Today, Saudi Arabia gives lip service to U.S. complaints that new suicide bombers and terrorists are slipping into Iraq through Saudi Arabia. In fact, about 40 percent of all outside insurgents are Saudi nationals.
Saudi Arabia has expressed open dislike for the Iraqi government, which is controlled by Iraq’s Shiite majority. Saudi Arabia is controlled by a Sunni ruling class. It is believed that the Saudi government is helping prop up Sunni opposition in Iraq, supposedly to balance out what it sees as the growing influence of Iranian Shiites.
Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians are being killed by the dozens by insurgents of all stripes.
To placate Israel in this new escalation of arms in the Middle East, the U.S. intends to increase military aid and also permit the sale of billions in weaponry to Israel over the next decade. U.S. military aid and arms sales are expected to total $30 billion, about $10 billion higher than in the previous decade.
While neither of these military aid packages are wise public policy given the unstable circumstances in which U.S. soldiers find themselves, at very least the U.S. ought to insist that Saudi Arabia stop its destabilizing behavior. After all, there’s a word used to describe nations who work against the interests of another nation, and the word isn’t “ally.”
Newspapers: and
———
Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Aug. 5, on the No Child Left Behind law:
As the 5-year-old federal No Child Left Behind law goes up for renewal in Congress next month, it’s not too much to ask Washington for a bit of humility this time around. Did anyone seriously believe that, within a dozen years of the law’s passage, every student in America would be “proficient” (not just barely functional) in reading, math and science—and that a thwacking with a figurative paddle would await any educator who left a single child behind?
Such can be the hubris of politicians who embark upon what they consider, perhaps even rightly, a noble cause.
We’ve never thought the law could achieve its utopian goals. And we’ve always opposed the notion that the federal government should interfere so intimately in the operation of local public schools. They should primarily be held accountable by parents, students, school board members and, depending on the issue, state officials.
That said, we support many of the ideas that inspired the original law. Standardized testing is an effective way to gauge student progress and to hold school systems and educators accountable if performance lags. And the law’s emphasis on research, particularly involving the effectiveness of various curriculum offerings and teaching methods, is a welcome change from the attitude that teachers and ed schools always know best, even when the results are manifestly below par.
Problem is, local officials have at times been sidetracked by federal mandates that should have never been included in the original law.
Washington meddling has on occasion penalized pioneering states like Colorado, which administered its first accountability tests the year George W. Bush opened his second term as governor of Texas. Last year, for instance, the U.S. Department of Education threatened to withhold $185,000 in funding for low-income students because Washington thought this state’s Spanish-language test wasn’t adequate. The beef was resolved, but why should distant bureaucrats attempt to micromanage the content of state and local tests?
In the renewed version of No Child Left Behind, the Department of Education should start acting less like an enforcement agency and more like a think tank. It should emphasize several strengths of the initial law—especially those related to curriculum development and research.
It should eliminate the punitive measures that would cut off funding to schools that don’t satisfy D.C. mandates. As the deadlines for compliance with the unrealistic (and ultimately impossible) standards draw near, the tendency will be for Washington and the states to let standards erode so that more and more students are deemed proficient. That will hardly help students learn.
Teachers and administrators abound who make heroic efforts to ensure that every young person in their charge is fully prepared to move to a higher grade or to graduation. The original No Child Left Behind law required every state to enter the same trail that Colorado helped blaze more than a decade ago.
Federal law should encourage those efforts and stop penalizing state governments and local school districts that are unable, despite their best efforts, to accomplish impossible tasks.
Editorial: ,2777,DRMN—23964—5 659702,00.html
———
STATE/REGIONAL:
The Denver Post, Aug. 2, on the Minneapolis bridge collapse and its implications for Colorado:
The tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis has dramatically focused attention on the dangerous neglect of America’s basic infrastructure. We hope it doesn’t take a similar calamity in Colorado to spur state and local officials to address our own serious backlog of highway and bridge repairs.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said that an inspection two years ago found structural deficiencies in the bridge that buckled Wednesday, sending dozens of cars into the Mississippi River. The Interstate 35W span rated 50 on a scale of 100 for structural stability and was classified as “structurally deficient.”
“Structurally deficient means some portions of the bridge need to be scheduled for repair or replacement. It doesn’t mean the bridge is unsafe,” Peters said after touring the disaster site.
Labels aside, the fate of the Minneapolis bridge should trigger serious concern about the Colorado Department of Transportation report that 375 of this state’s 3,757 automobile bridges are in need of rehabilitation and 110 need to be replaced. Coloradans should also be troubled by the fact that 35 percent of Colorado’s roads are in poor condition and have less than six years of service life remaining. Another 21 percent of the state’s roads are in fair condition and have less than a decade of service life left.
The neglect of Colorado’s bridges and roads is long-standing. Unfortunately, politicians prefer to pour money into dramatic new programs or buildings rather than the vital but unglamorous job of maintaining existing infrastructure. But voters can no longer tolerate such neglect. While it is rare that specific deaths can be attributed to failures of bridges or viaducts, poor maintenance and lack of safety devices do contribute to traffic accidents. And every motorist stalled in traffic understands how Colorado’s highway congestion undermines our state economy.
For all these reasons, The Post has long campaigned for better maintenance of the roads and bridges we already have as well as prudent expansions of our transportation system.
The problem, obviously, is money. About 75 percent of the current $805.6 million in the state Highway Users Tax Fund comes from fuel taxes. Colorado collects 22 cents on every gallon of gasoline sold and 20.5 cents on diesel fuel. But these fixed per-gallon taxes don’t keep up with inflation. Rising costs of asphalt, concrete and other construction materials mean that the fuel tax has lost more than half of its purchasing power since it was last raised in 1991.
In recent years, the state has tried to offset some of that loss by putting additional general fund money into the state highway network. But while the shrinking trust fund is shared with cities and counties, the additional funding from the legislature has gone to state needs alone. That worsens the problem for cities and counties, which actually operate eight times as many miles of highways as the state does. Any long-term solution to the state’s transportation needs must not overlook these local needs.
Gov. Bill Ritter has appointed a special committee to study Colorado’s transportation needs and recommend solutions to next year’s legislature. The Minneapolis tragedy only underscores how urgent that need is.
Editorial:
———
Summit Daily News, Frisco, Colo., Aug. 2, on mass transit along Interstate 70 into the mountains:
Thursday’s meeting between the I-70 Mountain Coalition and elected representatives on the state transportation board made a mass transit solution for the congestion look more and more impossible.
It was discussed, as were all the major alternatives the Coalition is considering. But when ideas were pushed to build mass transit before adding lanes, most Front Range representatives balked. One senator from Highland Springs said it best: “The people I represent expect more asphalt.”
Suzanne Williams, a state senator from Aurora who drives the interstate often to visit her daughter in Edwards, said they want more cars to drive Aurora’s economy, not an easy way to get to ski resorts.
Rep. Scott Renfroe from Greeley, who owns a house in Keystone, said he’d be hard pressed to ever use mass transit. “We figure you’re just going to put up with the traffic,” he said.
Most on the state transportation board also worry that mass transit would only benefit the ski industry and only make a small dent in traffic demands. One representative brought up this scenario: If one wants to hike around Cataract Lake, taking a train to Silverthorne still leaves you miles from the proper trailhead.
Overall, it’s clear that for those pushing mass transit as the primary solution must continue to become better salesmen to Front Range constituents. Aside from proving the environmental reasons for mass transit—which has been made very clear—proponents of mass transit must convince Front Range residents that a train or monorail will make their journeys to the mountains easier and more affordable.
Then, and only then, Front Range representatives on the transportation board will hear their constituents wanting a train, and not more asphalt. And until the Front Range residents are on board—they horribly outnumber us on any ballot issues—plans for mass transit will be left behind.
Editorial:
