Lack of school buses dangerous

8/25/2010

Putting students in danger in getting to school is not smart thinking on the part of the Toledo Public Schools (“Parents, police fret as TPS ends bus service,” Aug. 21).

Winter is approaching, and days are getting shorter and darker. It's not wise to send children out in the dark at the same time people are traveling to work. How many students will we lose this year because of irresponsible drivers?

If TPS is counting on its November levy to pass, think again. The worst-case scenario includes parents transferring their children to other schools, or possibly moving to a more friendly school system.

TPS administrators should solve this problem, but not by scaring parents with the no-busing tactic.

Marie Terry

Providence Township

No bus service a TPS scare tactic

Heatherdowns Early Learning Center, a preschool in Toledo for more than 25 years, offered students at Crossgates Elementary School a before-and-after school program — at least until TPS' decision to cancel transportation for those students within a two-mile radius of school.

Three weeks before school started, the center was notified that it could contract privately with Toledo Public Schools transportation. Then, just three days before school started, the center was told that this is no longer an option.

The center had to notify parents that they're going to have to find other arrangements. This, unfortunately, coincides with many TPS decisions over the past few years and is consistent with a lack of thought about the safety and education of children.

TPS is trying to coerce voters into approving the November levy at the risk of children's safety.

Johnette Bieber

Director

Heatherdowns Early Learning Center

Toledo

State senators and representatives are responsible for allowing the problems with Toledo Public Schools to continue. Politicians have been ignoring the situation for years, and our children suffer.

State governments have received less money from the federal government to fund schools. Therefore, the school district needs additional funds from property and income taxes. Unfortunately, voters can't afford to pay more taxes. The district can't pass a levy, so budgets are cut.

The cuts upset the public, who refuse to pass the next levy. Parents then remove their children from the school system. This leads to even less state funding and lower enrollment in the public schools. That causes the district to have to lay off staff and cut more programs.

It's a cycle that leaves children, parents, teachers, and administrators with difficult decisions to make.

Let's demand that our state lawmakers recognize this issue and help us strengthen our city school system.

Amanda VanNess

Waterville

Children can be cruel, but so can adults. Often this cruelty stems from a lack of self-worth.

It can be a relief to deflect insecurities onto someone who is different from what we perceive as the norm. This can lead to bullying of the stronger over the weaker.

Parents and teachers, be attentive. No student can learn if he or she is terrified.

Edith D. Plettner

Grand Avenue

I work for a company that inspects foreclosed homes that have sometimes been abandoned by the home-owner or tenant. I know times are tough for everyone, but that is no excuse to leave a dog behind with no food, water, or heat.

If you lose your home and can't take the dog with you, contact the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or another shelter and have them take the dog.

Shannon Davis

Hamilton, Ohio

The Aug. 17 Readers' Forum letter “Headline written by liberal Dem” was perhaps most telling because of its last line: “Needless to say, I didn't bother reading the article.”

Had the writer done so, he might have discovered that the article discussed the finding by the nonpartisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation that extending the tax cuts enacted under the George W. Bush administration would cost the Treasury Department more than $200 billion in lost revenue and add $36 billion to the budget deficit.

This, at a time when the Tea Partiers scream about the exploding deficit.

Eric Johnson

Ogden Avenue

In your Aug. 19 article “Family Dispute: Court-appointed receiver in charge of Tony Packo's,” why did you feel it was newsworthy to mention that Steve Skutch, the receiver in the Tony Packo's lawsuit, is a resident of Ottawa Hills?

Sam Zyndorf

Ottawa Hills

Your Aug. 23 article “Police probe $17,000 missing from Girl Scouts' cookie sale” quotes a spokesman for that organization: “It's not like they are taking money from a greedy corporation. They are taking money from hardworking girls, and that's pretty low in my opinion.”

So corporations are, by definition, greedy? And consequently, it is permissible to steal from them? Call me old-fashioned, but I'm appalled.

Jon Patton

Deepwood Lane

Progressives are morally and intellectually bankrupt. They have the goal of achieving social justice through the distribution of wealth.

Wealth redistribution is a morally dubious concept that reduces freedom and economic growth, increases unemployment, and diminishes the American Dream. At its worst, it leads to tyranny.

I think a better name for progressives is regressives, or subversives. The Obama Administration has doubled down on the progressive policies of the Bush administration.

If increases in spending on social programs and entitlements had been held to the rate of inflation under the Bush administration, we would have maintained the surplus that was created during the 1990s. Instead, we were left with massive debt that has expanded dramatically in the past 18 months with an explosion of redistributionist policies.

The housing crisis was caused by the implementation of the absurd progressive concept of home ownership as a right. Home ownership is a privilege earned by hard work and sacrifice and should not be handed out as an entitlement.

As the housing crisis demonstrated so vividly, it does no one any good to put people in a house they cannot afford. The housing market must be left to bottom out on its own, not propped up by more progressive handouts in the form of federally subsidized mortgage renegotiations and housing credits.

November's election will be of the greatest import. Only when Americans recognize that citizenship is far more a responsibility than an entitlement can this country return to the greatness that was created through the hard work and innovation of the American capitalist.

Whether Democratic or Republican, progressives must be voted out.

Glenn Maxwell

Charlestown Avenue