A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Denver Post, March 15, on need for uniform education standards across states to reform nation’s schools:
The proposed set of national K-12 education standards released last week is a big step forward in creating a uniformly high bar for achievement around the country.
To those who fear loss of local control or a single national curriculum or test, you should know that is not part of the proposal.
This set of standards, crafted by a group representing all but two of the states, is a voluntary effort to ensure that states are addressing the same math and English concepts each year.
How school districts do that—the books they use, the ways they teach—are matters left for state and local authorities to decide.
We like it because it will put everyone on the same page, so to speak, when it comes to determining the broad skills each child should be taught in each grade.
It isn’t a new concept. President George H.W. Bush sought national standards but was given the cold shoulder by those who didn’t want the federal government intruding on state education policy.
The No Child Left Behind law attempted to force education improvements by financially punishing school districts that didn’t meet achievement goals. One of the glaring shortfalls of NCLB is how it created—inadvertently, we think—an incentive to dumb down standards. NCLB both punished schools that couldn’t get their students to meet standards, and left states the authority to set standards.
It’s not surprising that states with very difficult education problems moved to lower standards so fewer of their students would be seen as failing.
This may have eased pressure on educators and satisfied those who value local control, but it did little for the students in their charge.
The Obama administration, which is not playing a part in crafting the standards, has many of the same goals that were pursued by several prior administrations, but is going about them differently.
The U.S. Department of Education is offering some $4 billion in incentives to states that adopt the national standards, called the Common Core State Standards.
This will go a long way, we think, toward a scenario in which states could compare themselves to one another and figure out which are succeeding and how they’re doing it.
Before common core standards become a reality, however, states must individually approve them.
Education officials in some states, such as Massachusetts, are objecting to the national standards because they believe they are lower than the standards already in place.
In Colorado, the state recently adopted new standards that “match or exceed” national expectations, Education Commissioner Dwight Jones said in a written statement issued last week. Dr. Stanley Rabinowitz, an expert who helped create the national standards, also helped shape the Colorado standards, Jones said.
Obviously, standards are not the end game in education reform. Ensuring classrooms are staffed with quality teachers who can improve student achievement also is a key part of improving the education that children receive.
But setting a uniform set of high goals is a necessary step in successfully reforming the nation’s K-12 education system.
Editorial:
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Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald, March 15, on why change in credit rules is a positive step:
There’s a justice in overdraft protection fees: Those who are careless in their spending pay penalties that support banking services for the rest of the population, services such as free checking.
But where’s the justice in allowing someone who doesn’t have enough money to buy that $4 cup of coffee to put it on his debit card anyway?
The Federal Reserve wants to rein in that kind of spending/fee structure. Beginning July 1, banks will not be allowed to charge overdraft fees without first getting permission from customers. It’s not clear who would choose to be charged $30 extra for the privilege of overdrawing his account to buy something he can’t afford. But there are plenty of Americans who are happy to have that kind of buying power.
Bank of America has announced that this summer, it simply will no longer allow debit card purchases to go through if there isn’t enough money in the account. The transaction would be rejected, as it should be.
Such policies might force only a small change in consumer habits, but a small step toward sanity is a positive sign.
The downside of this is that bank customers who have grown used to the benefits—thanks to the minority of customers responsible for the vast majority of overdrafts—might find themselves paying a little more for bank services.
Likely, banks still will compete for the good customers. Here’s hoping that responsible consumers can be rewarded for their behavior.
Editorial:
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STATE:
The Daily Sentinel, March 14, on Mesa State College’s relocation of its body farm:
The odor, it turns out, was too much. So, the proposed Mesa State College body farm will be moved.
Oh, it wasn’t the smell of bodies that were to eventually be placed at the college’s planned forensic anthropological research center that was the immediate issue. Nobody in this area can say with certainty how much of a problem the odor from decomposing bodies at the facility will be.
No, it was the whiff of growing public opposition to the proposed body farm near 29 Road and Riverside Parkway that proved to be too much for Mesa State President Tim Foster.
Faced with that strong neighborhood opposition and the possibility it could endanger the well-respected standing the college has among the vast majority of residents of this community, Foster announced Thursday he was killing the project at the 29 Road location. Instead, he said the college will work with other entities to seek a different location for the body farm that is far removed from any residential area.
That’s certainly sensible in light of the hostility toward the college that the project generated among residents of the area near the 29 Road site, and even among some people who live nowhere near that neighborhood.
However, we hope the change to a new location doesn’t derail the project for long.
We continue to believe the proposal—whether you call it a body farm or a forensic anthropological research center or something else—is a worthwhile endeavor.
First, it will enhance the reputation and expand the curriculum of what is already a good criminal justice program at Mesa State. It will allow people to study locally in one aspect of criminal justice that can’t be undertaken anywhere in Colorado now. The closest facility is in Texas.
Already, in the few weeks since news of the body farm became public, Mesa State has received communications from people outside of this area who said they hope for the opportunity to be involved with the project.
A body farm in the desert of Mesa County also would be a boon to the science of forensic anthropology. While there are other such facilities in the United States, they are all in humid climates. The project in Mesa County would offer criminal investigators and scientists the ability to examine how human bodies decompose in a very dry climate. Such a facility likely will attract students and experts from around the West.
But all of the benefits of the facility would mean little if the body farm made a large number of residents antagonistic toward or distrustful of Mesa State College. Dropping the plan for the 29 Road location and rerouting the bodies to a new permanent site far from homes and other buildings is the right thing to do.
Editorial:
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The (Colorado Springs) Gazette, March 10, on why a tax for Internet retailers in Colorado won’t work:
Everyone wants to tax the Internet. Colorado’s new effort began on March 1, and it’s not going well.
The Internet could generate tax revenue like manna from Heaven, if changing its nature were a simple matter of passing a law. Under our new law, someone selling a Kewpie doll from Dallas to a customer in Denver should calculate the sales tax and report the transaction to Colorado tax officials.
In traditional retail, an out-of-state wholesaler sells tax-free to a retailer in Colorado. The retailer resells the goods at a price that includes all sales taxes levied in the location of the seller. Internet sales circumvent that system.
State politicians may learn the hard way they can’t simply pass a law and command control of the Internet. The Internet is a rogue technological behemoth that seems to loathe its own creator—government.
John Gilmore, a libertarian computer science innovator, shared a slice of wisdom in the 1990s that everyone should learn: “The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
No truer words have been spoken about this modern age. The Internet lives like a wild stallion that cannot be tamed. In a world abundant with aggressive collectivists of all ideological flavors, the Internet serves as a great liberator of the individual. Most government efforts to control Internet content have failed. The few that have enjoyed short success have ultimately suffered from the Internet’s ability to interpret centralized planning and control as a threat for the individual to avoid or conquer.
Today, because of the Internet, the individual is empowered like never in the history of humankind. Elitist, top-down journalists and politicians controlled the message just 20 years ago. Today, they must compete with individuals who have the option to instantly address the masses and challenge the institutions of power.
Freedom of the press once belonged only to the few who could own a printing press; today it belongs to anyone with a personal laptop computer or access to a public library’s computers or a nearby Internet Cafe. Just 20 years ago, most consumers felt powerless against doctors, lawyers, mechanics and sales professionals who could speak over their heads to confuse or exploit them. Today, consumers educate themselves efficiently about nearly any subject before contracting for services or goods.
Just 20 years ago, the average citizen’s need for income meant a traditional job in a conventional work setting. Today, millions of Americans make money by selling goods, services, information or ideas over the Internet from their home computers.
Which brings us back to this new tax. All early indications tell us it’s not going to work.
Just after the law took effect, Amazon.com—possibly the country’s largest Internet retailer—shut off links to all of its affiliates in Colorado. Some affiliates are stay-at-home parents, the disabled and the elderly who have set up home businesses in order to generate income while routing around traditional work arrangements. Affiliates promote products for companies, such as Amazon, by marketing and linking to them in return for commissions earned for each sale they generate.
But Amazon—which isn’t located here and barely uses Colorado’s roads, bridges and schools—doesn’t want to calculate and report private exchanges to Colorado revenuers. Neither does retailer Hammacher Schlemmer & Co., which also cut off Colorado affiliates. Expect other online retailers to follow the lead of Amazon and avoid doing business in Colorado. Because the Internet connects them with customers all over the world, they don’t need Colorado and have the option to route around it.
If companies continue disconnecting from Colorado, this latest tax-the-Internet effort will have negligible benefit and could do considerable harm. It stands to generate little in revenue. Meanwhile, it destroys the livelihoods of Internet entrepreneurs—Coloradans who pay taxes and feed children—and limits the options of consumers.
The de facto tax-free status Internet merchants and their customers enjoy isn’t fair. It puts traditional storefront retailers at a disadvantage. Sell a gadget from a store on Tejon, and the price includes taxes. Sell it on the Internet, and the price includes no tax. But maybe we can’t fix it.
For better or worse, the Legislature may have to rescind this law as just another futile attempt to tax what can’t be taxed. If so, this will show us once again how the Internet interprets taxes as damage, and routes around them.
Editorial:
