Give public schools more aid
2/20/2013In response to your Feb. 2 editorial “Paying for school”: Gov. John Kasich and other politicians are in the dark about what school voucher programs are doing to poorer and large city school districts such as Toledo Public Schools.
Charter schools are enticing better students to leave public schools, which leaves many poorer-performing students behind.
This has led to the impossible task of districts such as TPS improving their overall test scores and has frustrated teachers who have a goal of keeping students up to state standards.
Politicians at every level have failed to come up with a better plan, other than to tell schools to increase efficiency and save money. Providing more money without a proven plan doesn’t mean you’ll have better schools.
As a retired teacher, I can say it’s easy to teach students who are at or above grade level. Lengthening the school day and school year and giving schools more money will give poorer schools a chance to catch up.
JOHN FLYNN
Overland Parkway
School-fund plan wrongly hurts TPS
It’s politics as usual with school funding. Governor Kasich’s formula for distributing education dollars leaves out Toledo Public Schools, clearly the district most in need of financial support (“Kasich funding formula favors suburban schools; TPS, other urban districts mostly flat,” Feb. 7).
More Republican votes are found in suburbs than in the central city. This swipe at TPS is another effort to starve the public school system while supporting charter schools.
As a volunteer in two TPS elementary schools, I have observed teachers working intensely and creatively to prepare their students for tests. Depriving TPS of needed money hurts not only students, but also, down the line, the rest of us.
NANCY ROFFEY
Cresthaven Lane
Prohibiting guns won’t work either
I do not own a gun and have no plans to acquire a gun. That said, members of the radical element who are screaming for gun control should read American history, about when extremists called the temperance movement led to the passage in 1919 of the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the sale and transportation of alcohol.
The next years, until Prohibition was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933, were among the most crime-ridden in our history. The 18th Amendment made wealthy those criminals who continued to provide illegal liquor to the masses.
Prohibition stops nothing; it just changes the way the business is transacted. Is this what we want when it comes to guns?
JOHN CHEZEK
Springfield Township
Arming teachers would add safety
The only way to stop school shootings is to arm teachers. They should receive even more training than necessary for a concealed-carry weapon permit.
CRAIG BOEHK
Swanton