Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 3-7-19 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, March 7,, 2019
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
In My Opinion
KWeep politics out of the classroom
ith the omnipresent current educational call for free college and facilities as well lifetime free education as people like
by Democrats, perhaps the time has come for us to take a critical look at the product which is being produced for all the money expended. It seems that every time that taxes are increased, there is more set aside for education and yet that threshold seems to be to dumb down every matriculating class. Adopting the lowest common denominator is not the way to achieve excellence. Call it what you want, but we are in
fact “dumbing-down” that which is acceptable from our schools.
Bertrand Russell was an early 20th century philosopher, scientist and
a proponent for liberalism. Given today’s crop of college educated young people, we find ourselves more in line with his view of education than any of the other famous quotes we were able to locate. Russell said, “Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
No analysis of our current educational system would be complete without the examination of the number of “soldiers” on the line in
the form of teachers who are doing what we call the “heavy lifting.” It just seems to us that many school systems are invested too heavily
in administration. Furthering to complicate things is a National Department of Education which is a complete waste of time and money in our opinion. All educational oversight should be on the State and local level.
Are there bad teachers? Yes, there are. Sadly, they, although often
rare, are a drag on the entire system, especially when they are teaching your kids! The slackers and incompetents are protected by one of the strongest unions in the country. One which should not even exist. We’ve all heard the saying that one bad apple will spoil the barrel. The size and strength of these unions is so large as to allow them to influence the political climate.
The California State University is a classic example of the diminution of the value of possessing a degree. They’ve willingly submitted their institutions to become diploma mills which crank out worthless degrees, under-educate students and spend copious amounts of time on political correctness. Closely examining our
Guest Column
SAtarving kids won't help them study
Fred Hall
Alexandra Ocasio- Cortez—a college graduate, but who would know from listening to her--we find no reason to find fault with his assertion.
Far too much classroom time is being devoted to
personal political opinion than is being spent constructively teaching history and other life assisting skills which provide students the ability
to use common sense in forming their own conclusions about current politics. It should be a crime against the survival of humanity, considering all the malfeasance in educating our young people.
Our view of the situation may appear simplistic to some, but as I recall, older methods now considered passé worked for all those years that they were the standard. Teach our children to speak proper English; teach them to read, write and communicate well; teach them math to put in place a basic understanding of business and an introduction to scientific thought; and teach them history to provide a perspective of our background that will allow them to avoid the same mistakes and follow an educated path into the future. Most of all, keep politics out of the classroom! Their experiences and proper education will provide all the knowledge needed for them to make political determinations on their
own. Teachers are paid to teach, not propagandize.
We’ve only had space available today to discuss education, it’s escalating cost and poor return. One should not forget that this is the
same group of Democrats who want to “give” us “free” healthcare and a guaranteed income for life whether we want to be employed or not! As they set about destroying America, there must be a pot of gold somewhere, which I fail to see!
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Dinuba Sentinel.
Guest Column
GM is closing my plant. What are politicians going to do about it?
F
the Chevy Cruze. In a few weeks, when GM shutters our plant, I’ll walk my last mile.
hold GM accountable and save our jobs.
Politicians who ignore Rust Belt towns like Lordstown do so at their peril. Returns from the recent midterm election indicate that Trumbull County — which flipped from blue to red in 2016 — flipped back to blue in 2018.
Workers in our county realized that Trump’s continued inaction to bring jobs back spoke louder than
or the past 20 years, I’ve walked at least nine miles a day on the body shop floor of the General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, where I help assemble
I don’t know what’s next for me and nearly 15,000 other workers who are being laid off at GM plants across the country.
What I do know is that GM is forcing my fellow workers to choose between mandatory relocation to other plants, hundreds of miles away from their families, and the unemployment line.
For me and many of my co-workers, this is a false choice. I can’t just pick up and leave. My entire family lives in the Lordstown area — my 84-year-old mother is too frail to move and she relies on me for her care. I’m also expecting my first grandchild here in June. But if I don’t relocate, I may not be able to find another job that pays a living wage.
Which is why I’m choosing instead to fight for the fair treatment and dignity that I deserve.
The truth is that our political leaders have failed America’s workers. President Donald Trump promised to revive the auto industry, but he hasn’t done anything to force GM to save our jobs. In fact, instead of punishing GM, the Trump administration has awarded the company with billions of dollars in federal contracts.
GM isn’t the only corporation that’s profiting from our tax dollars even as it betrays workers. New research from Good Jobs Nation shows that 185,000 jobs have been
lost to foreign competition on Trump’s watch, and that
his administration has awarded more than $115 billion in federal contracts to companies such as GM that continue to offshore jobs.
Our tax dollars shouldn’t reward job killers. That’s why the thousands of workers who are being laid off by GM — and the surrounding communities hurt by GM’s closure of our productive, profitable plant — are calling on the 2020 presidential candidates to come to Lordstown to tell us how they’re going to do what Trump won’t do:
Nanette Senters
n Arkansas lawmaker wants grew up in a rough to cut school lunch funding neighborhood and for schools that fail to had an abusive
his rhetoric. With unemployment and poverty rates — at 6 percent and 17 percent, respectively — well above the national averages, we need politicians who will do what it takes to turn things around.
Here in Lordstown, GM was the only game in town for workers looking for a decent wage to support their families. What’s more, our plant supported many other jobs in
the community. It’s estimated that for every GM job lost, there will be three or four jobs lost in the surrounding community.
Lordstown has given a lot over the years to GM — from tax breaks and subsidies during the auto bailout to a skilled, hard-working workforce. Now, GM is just walking away and sending our jobs to Mexico. They don’t seem to care that they’re taking our hopes for the future with them.
We need politicians who will stand on our side, not on the side of corporations that only care about their profit margins.
I hope to see the 2020 presidential candidates here in Lordstown soon. And I hope to hear them outline their plans to hold GM and other offshoring corporations accountable. We need good jobs here now. Our future and the future of our community depend on it.
Nanette Senters has spent the past two decades working at GM’s Lordstown plant in Northeast Ohio. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
improve their students’ reading levels. I’m sorry, what?
I think I understand the logic behind
such a proposal. I just strongly disagree with it. It’s cruel, but even more than that, it’s based on a misunderstanding of human nature and human society.
The logic is this: When people do bad things, you should punish them. When they do good things, reward them.
If the schools do a bad thing (fail to teach kids to read), this bill punishes them (takes away their lunch money). Honestly that sounds more like the actions of a playground bully than an advanced democracy.
Perhaps the punishment model of governing would work if schools and teachers and students and parents were naturally bad, or if they were
only failing to improve reading levels because they weren’t trying. Maybe if that were the case, a punishment might be the incentive they needed. Maybe.
But what are the odds that an entire state’s worth of schools and children and their families are all trying to do poorly?
Most Americans believe education
is important to success in life. Sociological studies like the books Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau and Despite the Best Intentions by Amanda E. Lewis and John B. Diamond found that the parents and school children they studied, even those who were doing poorly in school, valued education and believed it was important to do well.
A much more likely scenario is
that the students, their families, their teachers, and their schools are all trying their best and failing. And if they are failing, it’s for a reason, or several reasons.
I’ve been teaching college for several years now. I have yet to meet a lazy student. I’ve had students cut class
or fail to turn in homework, and sometimes they’ve plagiarized. There’s always a reason.
One student who turned in no papers
Jill Richardson
family. He went to substandard schools and he hadn’t written a paper for school
since 8th grade. This student was
smart, and he was one of the most motivated students I’ve ever taught. When I asked him
about not turning in his papers, I found out he was afraid anything he wrote wouldn’t be good enough. He feared if he went to the school’s writing center for help, he would be ridiculed for being “dumb.”
That student ended up earning a B in my class. Punishing him wouldn’t have helped. Instead, I worked with him. I found out what his needs were and I addressed those needs. That’s how you improve education. The student and I were both fortunate that I had the time and ability to give him what he needed.
When students and schools are failing, it’s because they cannot do any better than they are with the resources they have. They need something
they don’t have in order to improve. Punishing them won’t fix the problem. Helping them will.
What’s more, hunger impacts school performance. Denying children food
is a sure way to worsen reading levels, not improve them.
I’m not advocating blindly throwing money at all societal problems as
a miracle cure. What we need is a careful, measured approach in which we find out what the actual problems are and then study cost-effective ways to fix them.
When people are already trying their best with the resources they have and failing to improve, you can’t punish them into doing better. Especially by making kids go hungry.
OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is pursuing a PhD
in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in San Diego. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
Join the discussion
The Dinuba Sentinel welcomes submissions of letters to the editor on topics of local relevance. Word limit is 350. Letters are considered once per month for each submitter.
Letters must include the author’s name, phone number and address for verification. Mail to 145 South L Street, Dinuba, CA, 93618, or e-mail to editor@thedinubasentinel.
com.
Letters will be edited for length, grammar and clarity.
Libelous letters will not be printed. Guest columns will be considered for publication - E-mail editor@ thedinubasentinel.com. Word limit is 650.