Letters 03-09-2015

March 8, 2015

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A Courageous Stance

Thank you Stephen Tuttle for your courageous and excellent editorial about the LGBT community. I appreciated, too, your willingness to delve into the biblical roots of this prejudice... and expose it for a sham, as it truly is. One minor quibble: not all Christian churches believe that they, and they alone, have the truth. More and more today are progressive Protestant Churches (perhaps Catholic and Orthodox, too) realizing that there are many pathways to God. Namely, that the spirit of Christ is larger than Christianity. But a small quibble, to be sure. Many thanks.

Fred Edmonds, Frankfort

Laughter The Best Weapon

The "Saturday Night Live" skit featured Dakota Johnson playing a high school graduate apparently heading off to her first year of college and saying goodbye to her dad. But when he says that her ride is here, it turns out to be a pick-up truck filled with gun-toting ISIS terrorists.

Should Americans find this skit to be depraved or hilarious? But first, what would ISIS think of it? I believe that they would hate it, because laughing at ISIS diminishes it.

And what would American teenage girls think of this skit? They would laugh, and by laughing, would wonder why they or their contemporaries would find ISIS to be an attractive career choice.

ISIS, like all terrorist organizations, wants, above all, to be feared, not laughed at. So laugh away America, because right now, hilarity may be our best defense, and perhaps even our best offense as well.

Bob Ross, Pellston

An Educational Monster

I would like to respond to Mr. Tuttle’s column in this week’s Express regarding Common Core. I’m not sure where he is getting his information, but most of it is incorrect.

The first inaccuracy is who wrote the standards. He stated parents and teachers were involved. They were not. Two work groups with a total of 24 people who mainly represented the testing companies ACT and the College Board wrote them, not current K-12 teachers or parents. In the math group, nine of the twelve members had no teaching experience; the other three have not been in a K-12 classroom for a number of years, and only one of those taught math. The lead architect of CCSS, David Coleman, has no K-12 classroom experience. The others in the ELA group are also connected to testing companies.

The second inaccuracy is regarding Race To The Top. Schools had to sign onto CCSS to receive this money. This is after they were raped of funding, making it not exactly voluntary. That information came right from our Chief of Schools during a meeting I had with him. They also had to implement statewide longitudinal data systems, which track your child’s every move. Every keystroke on a state test is recorded and sent to the DOE. No less than 400 points of data are collected on students throughout the year with all the online work they do. State tests are not seen by teachers nor parents. On the contrary, they are forbidden to see test questions. When testing is done and graded (by folks found on Craigslist), teachers get a number for each student grade. Yes, this is a monster, Mr. Tuttle.

Kelley Vilenski, Interlochen

What’s Just?

Apparently as proven by the acceptance of Jered Ottenwess’s resignation, one can allegedly perform domestic abuse during a drunken binge and receive three months of pay and benefits from the City of Traverse City. What’s up with that?

Mark Deephouse, Beulah