It was no surprise to those of us who are acquainted with the cost of tuition programs for sending towns to see those towns cut programs for younger students so their older students can choose a school (“Tuition costs weigh heavy on school budgets,” Jan. 24).
Over the many years I served on a school board, I’ve watched board members from other towns struggle with the moral dilemma of whether to support their older students at the expense of their younger students. In the end, those towns use various justifications to maintain their status as a sending town (a town offering school choice to older students). The biggest among them is that school choice is important for students’ needs and necessary to maintain that town’s attractiveness to current and future residents — the theory seems to be that choice communities have higher real estate values. I’ve never seen a study that proves this theory.
Moreover, the concept of school choice itself is inequitable. On the surface it looks real and meaningful, but not every student can access it. There is a correlation between students choosing schools further from their homes and family income. The reality is a student from a family that lives far up a hill with one car is more likely to be at the mercy of the school bus system, which almost always takes students to the closest school.
The truth is that students with the most access to choice come from the families that can most afford it.
GEO HONIGFORD
South Royalton
I find it both interesting and disconcerting that the media have abandoned all pretense of neutrality in their reporting on the Biden-Harris administration. Certainly their one-sided propaganda cannot remotely be termed journalism. Physicians take the Hippocratic oath, in which they pledge to “do no harm,” but this doesn’t keep some from practicing abortion or euthanasia. There is no corresponding oath for journalists. If there were, it would be called the “hypocritic oath.”
Right now, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are play toys of the media, much as the Kennedy family was in the early 1960s, but once the newness wears off they’ll be put aside like broken toys on Christmas morning.
Joe Biden has already developed a serious condition, and he’s not alone in suffering from it. It’s called sin, and it’s something we all must confront. Being a sinner doesn’t automatically disqualify him from serving as president, any more than it did Donald Trump, but it’s whether he allows it to control his life or honestly confronts it that makes all the difference.
There are three lusts that can potentially control a politician: money, sex and power. Sooner or later these will bring a man or woman down. Right now, Democrats appear obsessed with exercising absolute control over every aspect of American life. Fuel prices are climbing because Biden has targeted the oil and gas industries and the CEOs of those companies are determined to make their money while they can. Constitutional protections of assembly and worship are being restricted in the name of “the greater good,” and now we learn that “trusted” Dr. Anthony Fauci has been changing his herd-immunity estimates in order to maximize participation in vaccines.
I see the irony that “science” is invoked by liberals if convenient to prove a point and suppressed if not. God is not mocked. I don’t envy those on the side of deception.
WILLIAM A. WITTIK
Hartford
We are advised to seek unity now, before the pus is drained from the wound. This error only causes further and deeper infections.
Fox “News” lies incessantly — it’s what’s called “news entertainment” — and Donald Trump’s Capitol rioters relied on these distortions. The Federal Communications Commission used to have rules about fairness and truth in broadcasting. These were dismantled by another movie star, Ronald Reagan. Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of News Corp., and his “news entertainment” are accused of being a “cancer on democracy” in his native Australia. Many of those who follow Fox do not recognize they are being “entertained” by lies.
Conducting government by tweet is absurd! Twitter has proven to be a sure way to hell. Of course, the Big Tech monopolies must be deconstructed and regulated as the utilities they have become. Repair their lack of accountability with truth. Without a return to Walter Cronkite-like news reporting, there is no chance we can survive.
The senators and representatives who supported the insurrection must also be impeached, convicted and removed from office. The message to their districts should be: “Fox News is entertainment. If you want representation, watch the real news.”
As checks and balances and standards have repeatedly been dropped in the U.S., so has the public discourse. Put the guardrails back up and let the pus drain.
VICKI WARD
Barnard
Mary K. Otto’s Perspectives piece (“We need the humanities to help shape our work, and our lives”) in the Jan. 24 Sunday Valley News was right on. I have had a satisfying career and full life using the skills of inquiry, writing and critical analysis that Otto mentioned. Finding myself divorced and needing work (with a bachelor’s degree in history), I found jobs where I had to use all of these essential skills that were instilled in me at college.
I urge anyone who feels strongly about a liberal arts education to speak up so that the University of Vermont and other universities do not slash these programs. To quote the Dec. 9 statement by the UVM Humanities Center: “the purpose of the university is not merely technical education; rather it is to create better citizens and strengthen the nation by enriching the human experience.”
KIT HOOD
Sharon