Letters - Wednesday

public schools
Government cannot continue
to operate schools for Americans
Eric Christen wrote a great piece regarding the state of our government education system ("Public education problems a result of system's design," Other Voices, Jan. 3). His last statement called for a free people to demand something better. For the short term, the concept of choice and competition should be highly considered but I think the long term remedy is to call of the dismantling and the eventual abolishment of the public schools, and make sure that the $200 billion spent on education goes back directly to the hard-working families that want the best for the children.
Public schools look at success in a different paradigm. A case in point is a recent commentary by Phyllis Schlafly in which 38 percent of 18- 29-year-old evangelical Christians voted for Barack Obama because they felt his cause of social justice trumped social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. The children of the so-called religious right are indeed questioning the beliefs of their parents and adopting the values that are advocated by such change agents as John Dewey, and former Weather Undergrounder William Ayers. Schlafly's piece goes on to say that seven out of 10 voters in the 18-29 age range favor big government and that the government is the ultimate solution to all our problems. Our children are indeed learning, but the lessons are very alien to America.
Public schools demand more and more money and the taxpayers are feeling the pinch, even to the point that people with fixed incomes may be forced to sell their homes because they can't pay the property taxes, yet the system does not care about these people and demands more money.
The government school systems across this country needs to be put out of their misery. Our children's future and their children's future depends our slaying this monster which is turning out students to embrace and enact the ideals and values of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, not the values of American's Founding Fathers.
Don McCullen
Colorado Springs
government spending
Strict measure would help
officials balance their budgets
I agree with David Tessier about county commissioners making voters feel bad over the election ("Commissioners continue to try to make voters feel bad over election," Letters, Dec. 27). I am sick and tired of opening the newspaper and reading about budget shortfalls throughout the city and state. The latest comes from the Jan. 3 Gazette story that noted the Legislature must cut $631 million from the budget, and they just don't know how they're going to do it.
It also stated, "Coloradans are depending on government to be there for them and the one time they actually need us to be there, we're going to be cutting programs".
Here's an idea for the city, county and state: make every employee take a 10 percent pay cut and have pay freezes for two years. I know it sounds horrible, but it happened to me and I now get the privilege of working two jobs to attempt to pay for every new fee invented to make up budget shortfalls.
This should save a huge sum of money and restore some services that were supposedly eliminated and they need to stop giving out bonuses simply for doing the job employees were hired to do, no matter how great a job they did.
Doug Bruce knows what they're up to and he makes sure people are made aware of all the shenanigans going on and that's probably one of the biggest reasons they don't like him.
We had better hope that TABOR doesn't get voted out because if you think you're getting hit with fees (taxes) now, wait until then because it will only get worse and most of us simply can't afford it.
Diane Sigler
Colorado Springs
selective investigations
SEC dropped ball with Madoff
to harass Stewart for trading
I loved Chuck Asay's cartoon in the Jan. 2 Gazette that portrayed an indifferent Securities and Exchange Commission's response to complaints about Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. I couldn't help but recall the feeding frenzy when big, bad Martha Stewart was brought to her knees for lying to the SEC about whether she had profited from insider information. The media coverage went on forever and the crowing by the jury foreman was nauseating. Stewart took her punishment graciously and made it a positive experience.
Stewart profited by about $42,000, as I recall, by selling Imclone stock when she did. I can just see the SEC investigators celebrating and patting themselves on the back for a job well done.
In the meantime, Bernie Madoff was running a scheme which has or will cost investors $50 billion. The SEC sure missed the boat on that one.
Really, I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or throw up my hands in disgust at the SEC's failure to investigate Bernie Madoff much sooner.
Eleanor Bergquist
Colorado Springs
looming crisis
Nation cannot continue to run deficits in the trillions of dollars
We have spent more than a half-trillion dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon budget has gone up $70 billion. Billions have been spent to bail out the banks, insurance companies, and the auto makers, and to bail out bad home loans. Our Federal deficit now is at $10 trillion.
This administration cut taxes for corporate giants and the super-wealthy, taking tens of billions out of the Treasury.
How can a country spend more than we take in?
We're running this country on a credit card. We cannot constantly go into debt. There is a point where this debt cannot be dealt with. As our dollar collapses we will wake up one morning and find our dollar at half its value. Many years ago I was in Mexico when the peso was 12-to-1 and overnight it went to 24-to-1 so everyone lost half of their buying power. It could happen here if the debt grows any larger, so soon we will have to take in more revenue and spend a lot less. It would be better to pay a little more in taxes, especially the rich who have more to lose.
Irwin MacLeod
Colorado Springs
back on track?
D-20 should return da Vinci
to its original education mission
I am concerned, in fact outraged, that Academy School District 20 is changing the mission of The da Vinci Academy. I have appeared before the board of education, along with many other families, to plead for board support in rectifying the situation. The da Vinci Academy is (or has been) an elementary school with an arts-integrated curriculum which differentiates between learning styles for children. The school gave the residents of D-20 a real choice in elementary schools.
The school was awarded the Creative Ticket Award by The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. A group of kids and parents traveled to D.C. to perform on the Kennedy Center stage. It was an incredible experience.
Now D-20 has hired a principal and vice principal with no art experience to lead the school, all while looking us in the eye and stating "we support the arts." It is believed that this is a move to increase CSAP scores (which were scored "High" last year) and to change the mission of the school from arts-integrated to CSAP preparatory. It is heartbreaking and maddening.
The change in the curriculum, the atmosphere and the culture of the school is offensive and insulting to the founder of the school and the people who have supported its mission. A concerned parent group has formed to bring this problem to the attention of the administration of the school, the board of education and the media.
We continue to appear before the board to discuss these issues. After many failed attempts to get our needs met (which have escalated to include the removal of the principal and vice principal), we have decided to boycott the CSAP in March. So far we have 15 families participating in this boycott and we are continuing in our attempt to gain support for this effort. We want our school back the way it was intended - an arts-integrated academy with differentiation for learning styles.
Teaching to CSAP does not create problem solvers. We want our school back on track.
Vanessa P. Graf
Colorado Springs