Later in the article he seems to be endorsing military action against ISIS when he refers to the president’s responsibility to try to stop the violence by ISIS. If the newspaper misquoted him, or if the impression I get that he is supporting military action is incorrect, then I am sure he will clarify these matters.
The frenetic, hysterical, fervor generated by the beheading of Americans should be compared to the millions of people in other lands who have died as victims of various U.S. munitions in our numerous wars of aggression, especially aerial bombs which have often destroyed human heads in many other even more repugnant ways. However, this information is hidden from the American people who in many cases have already been infected by the disease of American exceptionalism.
As has happened before, we are being scared by a president, guided by militants in his administration, who is using fear to gain public support for his hostile actions, whereas the real reason is to promote corporate profits.
My words here are the reality and are not spoken out of hate. We should love all people on our planet as our equals and consider ourselves, from a human viewpoint, to be citizens of the world. — JAMES A. LUCAS, DAYTON
A look at the state report card
Re “Lehner: Our approach isn’t working,” Sept. 23: I was glad to read that State Sen. Peggy Lehner acknowledges the impact of poverty on the performance of schools on the state report card. Add the lack of parental involvement in schools, English not spoken in the home, and very negative neighborhood and peer attitudes and you have a combination of factors that are too great for some students and schools to overcome. To ignore those factors ignores the real reasons for differences on the report card. Yet a local state representative was quoted a couple years ago that he was not interested in hearing the challenges the schools face, only in seeing results.
The difference between A and F schools on the report card is not in how schools are teaching the students, it is how the students are reacting to the instruction and moving forward with it. And that moving forward is either helped or slowed by the variations in the factors listed above. The schools are not the cause of the variations, they are the results.
We are in an election year. I would hope that people at candidate debates ask the question of why we have letter grades to compare schools or why we have a system of ranking at all. All the schools need is to know how their students are doing compared to the state standards and proficiency levels. Comparisons with each other provide nothing except an opportunity to beat down already beleaguered schools; and to what end? — THOMAS WOLF, MIAMI TWP.
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