Letters to the Editor 04-22-2005
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
- Public Education - Safe School - Daylight Time - Cable TV - Pearl Harbor - Punishing Vandals
Public Education
Editor, Times-Union:Calls are needed immediately to ask Gov. Mitch Daniels to veto a bill that would force taxpayers to pay $7,000 for a $2,500 education for thousands of pupils. The bill is SB 598.
It is very inexpensive to educate a child who gets his education via the Internet at home, $2,500 at the most. So if a public charter school does this, taxpayers should not be compelled to pay $7,000 for the pupil, right?
The legislature thinks otherwise. They have approved a bill that will allow public charter schools to deliver internet education to students who stay home, but would still allow them to collect full per pupil funding from you, the taxpayer!
Please call Gov. Mitch Daniels immediately. Your message can be as simple as:
"Please veto Senate Bill 598. It's fiscally irresponsible and will raise my taxes needlessly. Restore fiscal protection and accountability by preventing charter schools that provide inexpensive Internet education from getting full per pupil funding from taxpayers."
This bill hurts you as a taxpayer.
Call Gov. Daniels at 317-232-4567.
Background: Senate Bill 598 removes a current safeguard that protects taxpayers from fiscal disaster.
Under the current law, charter schools are prohibited from giving home-based instruction. This is because charter schools get paid around $7,000 per student but it only costs $500 to $2,500 to provide home-based instruction.
S.B. 598 removes this vital safeguard and allows charter schools to provide inexpensive home based instruction while receiving full per pupil funding. Many middle income citizens are struggling to pay rising property taxes. They do not want their taxes raised because of a law that pays charter schools $7,000 for a $2,500 education.
About 23,250 students are being homeschooled in Indiana today. If only 25 percent (5,812) were recruited into charter schools, Indiana taxpayers would see their tax bill go up $40.6 million.
Indiana Code 20-5.5-8-2 currently prohibits a charter school from providing "home-based instruction." S.B. 598 guts this prohibition by inserting the word "solely" in front of it. This would allow charters to provide inexpensive home-based instruction to 99 percent of their students as long as 1 percent received non-home based instruction.
Homeschooling is good.
Charter schools are good.
S.B. 598 is bad, for everyone.
Daniel Stevens
Libertarian Party Kosciusko County
Warsaw
Safe School
Editor, Times-Union:When I learned last week that my seventh-grade niece and a group of her friends had been threatened at school, I was taken back by the thought of children and their school life. To be scared into thinking you were going to be beat up and made to feel unsafe in the hallways of your school is unimaginable. It really made me realize how much I take my son's teachers and school for granted. My son is a first-grader at Redeemer Lutheran and I could not be more pleased with the academic standards the school upholds. For my son to be greeted every morning by the staff, by name no less, and made to feel welcome every day is truly a blessing. They display a true and genuine interest and care for every child in the school regardless of their age or their faith. Although no one can place a value on the importance of education and safety of your children, Redeemer Lutheran is affordable and well worth every penny. With accredited teachers, great test scores and all-around love and care for my child, I can't imagine him going to school anywhere else. They make you feel like family. As we leave the care of our children every day in the hands of some one else, I for one am glad my son is at Redeemer Lutheran. His education and well-being is priceless and I know that every member of the staff feels the same way. I thank God every day for the awesome experience he has by attending the school.
Chris Morehouse
Warsaw
via e-mail
Daylight Time
Editor, Times-Union:John Kozon called yesterday. As cranked up about daylight-saving time as only John Kozon can get.
Did I miss something? I don't recall Daniels saying anything about the issue during the campaign. It's what I get for voting for a Washington insider. I normally vote Republican because until recently they have been the more conservative. Really wish I had voted for Joe this time.
I really think the state legislators have a lot more important things to do than horse around with the clocks. Daylight-saving time is nothing but a recreational issue. Never has been, never will be. It's another hour in the evening for people to spend outside and that's it.
What really makes me nervous is what Daniels feels we need to get in line on next.
Harold L. Kitson
Cable TV
Editor, Times-Union:This is in response to the cable TV situation: cable versus satellite and not receiving the Fort Wayne stations.
If the main concern is not recieving the Fort Wayne channels with Comcast and the cost increase that would be included in subscribing to satellite; there is one more option available for those who don't want the additional expense.
We purchased an amplified TV antenna from Indiana Antenna Supply in Ligonier. The antenna looks different than the standard. It is made of white plastic and looks like a saucer. The amplifier is encased inside and protected by the weather elements. We are able to recieve all the Fort Wayne and South Bend TV stations at no additional monthly obligation. The cost of the antenna system was $159. There may be an aditional charge for the hardware to install the unit to your house. The company told us that the units seldom need repair; and if they do, they will repair them. They also mentioned that anyone can install them ... that is something they don't do.
Misty Wagley
Warsaw
via e-mail
Pearl Harbor
Editor, Times-Union:Two weeks ago I was in Pearl City, Oahu, Hawaii. From my cousin's home on a hillside I could see Pearl Harbor with the sun reflecting from battleships about 15 miles away. For years I had wanted to go to Hawaii.
There flooded my octogenerian mind the happenings there 64 years ago, when a neighbor rapped on my door yelling, "The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor battleships." The rapid communication media at that time was the radio. We learned thereby the devastation wrought by the Japanese bombers on Dec. 7, 1941. My cousin, retired from the military, pointed to the notch in the mountain range where the bombers flew into Pearl Harbor.
We went to the battleship Arizona memorial office in the morning on a weekday, but were given tickets for the 20th group of 30 or so to be ferried out to the memorial. above the watery grave of the battleship yet visible with the entombed bodies of more than a thousand naval personnel therein.
We know that the attack was invited by our failure to be vigilant. It has happened again, 9-11-01, and will happen again, if and when ease, comfort, pleasure are put ahead of duty and conviction.
We who attest to being Christian, shrug our shoulders rather than prove that our "faith worketh through love," Galatians 5:6. Does your faith work, does mine? Would people be surprised to learn that you and I are Christians? If your and my Christianity doesn't outwork, out love, out serve the rest of the "isms" of the world, it doesn't deserve to win.
Can we Christians be apathetic, self-indulgent in our priorities, in a day and time like this. and be followers, servants of Jesus Christ? He said, "Deny yourself, take up the cross and follow me." Remember the Passion of Christ and his cross.
Let us look at Pearl Harbor and 9/11/01, and be vigilant in our faith and love, and service for Christ the rest of our lives here, and hear "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord."
C.L. Hendrix
Winona Lake
via e-mail
Punishing Vandals
Editor, Times-Union:The best sentence I've ever remembered for vandals was back in the late 1950s. In Peru, Ind., some teenage boys were caught pushing over tombstones in the cemetery. They had even broken into a mausoleum. So during the summer, while all their classmates were out of school for the summer, the judge ordered them, the boys, to work for the cemetery sexton for a 40-hour week the whole period, without pay.
Of course, that wouldn't be possible now! That would be classed as cruel and unusual punishment.
Allen D. Regenos
Claypool
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- Public Education - Safe School - Daylight Time - Cable TV - Pearl Harbor - Punishing Vandals
Public Education
Editor, Times-Union:Calls are needed immediately to ask Gov. Mitch Daniels to veto a bill that would force taxpayers to pay $7,000 for a $2,500 education for thousands of pupils. The bill is SB 598.
It is very inexpensive to educate a child who gets his education via the Internet at home, $2,500 at the most. So if a public charter school does this, taxpayers should not be compelled to pay $7,000 for the pupil, right?
The legislature thinks otherwise. They have approved a bill that will allow public charter schools to deliver internet education to students who stay home, but would still allow them to collect full per pupil funding from you, the taxpayer!
Please call Gov. Mitch Daniels immediately. Your message can be as simple as:
"Please veto Senate Bill 598. It's fiscally irresponsible and will raise my taxes needlessly. Restore fiscal protection and accountability by preventing charter schools that provide inexpensive Internet education from getting full per pupil funding from taxpayers."
This bill hurts you as a taxpayer.
Call Gov. Daniels at 317-232-4567.
Background: Senate Bill 598 removes a current safeguard that protects taxpayers from fiscal disaster.
Under the current law, charter schools are prohibited from giving home-based instruction. This is because charter schools get paid around $7,000 per student but it only costs $500 to $2,500 to provide home-based instruction.
S.B. 598 removes this vital safeguard and allows charter schools to provide inexpensive home based instruction while receiving full per pupil funding. Many middle income citizens are struggling to pay rising property taxes. They do not want their taxes raised because of a law that pays charter schools $7,000 for a $2,500 education.
About 23,250 students are being homeschooled in Indiana today. If only 25 percent (5,812) were recruited into charter schools, Indiana taxpayers would see their tax bill go up $40.6 million.
Indiana Code 20-5.5-8-2 currently prohibits a charter school from providing "home-based instruction." S.B. 598 guts this prohibition by inserting the word "solely" in front of it. This would allow charters to provide inexpensive home-based instruction to 99 percent of their students as long as 1 percent received non-home based instruction.
Homeschooling is good.
Charter schools are good.
S.B. 598 is bad, for everyone.
Daniel Stevens
Libertarian Party Kosciusko County
Warsaw
Safe School
Editor, Times-Union:When I learned last week that my seventh-grade niece and a group of her friends had been threatened at school, I was taken back by the thought of children and their school life. To be scared into thinking you were going to be beat up and made to feel unsafe in the hallways of your school is unimaginable. It really made me realize how much I take my son's teachers and school for granted. My son is a first-grader at Redeemer Lutheran and I could not be more pleased with the academic standards the school upholds. For my son to be greeted every morning by the staff, by name no less, and made to feel welcome every day is truly a blessing. They display a true and genuine interest and care for every child in the school regardless of their age or their faith. Although no one can place a value on the importance of education and safety of your children, Redeemer Lutheran is affordable and well worth every penny. With accredited teachers, great test scores and all-around love and care for my child, I can't imagine him going to school anywhere else. They make you feel like family. As we leave the care of our children every day in the hands of some one else, I for one am glad my son is at Redeemer Lutheran. His education and well-being is priceless and I know that every member of the staff feels the same way. I thank God every day for the awesome experience he has by attending the school.
Chris Morehouse
Warsaw
via e-mail
Daylight Time
Editor, Times-Union:John Kozon called yesterday. As cranked up about daylight-saving time as only John Kozon can get.
Did I miss something? I don't recall Daniels saying anything about the issue during the campaign. It's what I get for voting for a Washington insider. I normally vote Republican because until recently they have been the more conservative. Really wish I had voted for Joe this time.
I really think the state legislators have a lot more important things to do than horse around with the clocks. Daylight-saving time is nothing but a recreational issue. Never has been, never will be. It's another hour in the evening for people to spend outside and that's it.
What really makes me nervous is what Daniels feels we need to get in line on next.
Harold L. Kitson
Cable TV
Editor, Times-Union:This is in response to the cable TV situation: cable versus satellite and not receiving the Fort Wayne stations.
If the main concern is not recieving the Fort Wayne channels with Comcast and the cost increase that would be included in subscribing to satellite; there is one more option available for those who don't want the additional expense.
We purchased an amplified TV antenna from Indiana Antenna Supply in Ligonier. The antenna looks different than the standard. It is made of white plastic and looks like a saucer. The amplifier is encased inside and protected by the weather elements. We are able to recieve all the Fort Wayne and South Bend TV stations at no additional monthly obligation. The cost of the antenna system was $159. There may be an aditional charge for the hardware to install the unit to your house. The company told us that the units seldom need repair; and if they do, they will repair them. They also mentioned that anyone can install them ... that is something they don't do.
Misty Wagley
Warsaw
via e-mail
Pearl Harbor
Editor, Times-Union:Two weeks ago I was in Pearl City, Oahu, Hawaii. From my cousin's home on a hillside I could see Pearl Harbor with the sun reflecting from battleships about 15 miles away. For years I had wanted to go to Hawaii.
There flooded my octogenerian mind the happenings there 64 years ago, when a neighbor rapped on my door yelling, "The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor battleships." The rapid communication media at that time was the radio. We learned thereby the devastation wrought by the Japanese bombers on Dec. 7, 1941. My cousin, retired from the military, pointed to the notch in the mountain range where the bombers flew into Pearl Harbor.
We went to the battleship Arizona memorial office in the morning on a weekday, but were given tickets for the 20th group of 30 or so to be ferried out to the memorial. above the watery grave of the battleship yet visible with the entombed bodies of more than a thousand naval personnel therein.
We know that the attack was invited by our failure to be vigilant. It has happened again, 9-11-01, and will happen again, if and when ease, comfort, pleasure are put ahead of duty and conviction.
We who attest to being Christian, shrug our shoulders rather than prove that our "faith worketh through love," Galatians 5:6. Does your faith work, does mine? Would people be surprised to learn that you and I are Christians? If your and my Christianity doesn't outwork, out love, out serve the rest of the "isms" of the world, it doesn't deserve to win.
Can we Christians be apathetic, self-indulgent in our priorities, in a day and time like this. and be followers, servants of Jesus Christ? He said, "Deny yourself, take up the cross and follow me." Remember the Passion of Christ and his cross.
Let us look at Pearl Harbor and 9/11/01, and be vigilant in our faith and love, and service for Christ the rest of our lives here, and hear "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord."
C.L. Hendrix
Winona Lake
via e-mail
Punishing Vandals
Editor, Times-Union:The best sentence I've ever remembered for vandals was back in the late 1950s. In Peru, Ind., some teenage boys were caught pushing over tombstones in the cemetery. They had even broken into a mausoleum. So during the summer, while all their classmates were out of school for the summer, the judge ordered them, the boys, to work for the cemetery sexton for a 40-hour week the whole period, without pay.
Of course, that wouldn't be possible now! That would be classed as cruel and unusual punishment.
Allen D. Regenos
Claypool
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