Letters to the Editor - Aug. 28
Correction to Bike and Build Article
Dear Editor,
My name is Dorothy Simmons of Paradise. I would like to make a correction and some items of interest to your article of the “Bike and Build” article you wrote on Aug. 14th.
You stated “the half dozen riders”, when in fact there were 30 young people in this group that rode their bicycles from Rhode Island to Seattle in 70 days; that is 3,914 miles, with 8 build days on there route; Missoula and Coeur d ‘Alene being two of the 8 build days. They had 4 rest days along the trip. An amazing bunch of young people that do good for our country.
We at UMC in Paradise were honored to have them stop at our church for overnight. We fed them dinner and breakfast and they enjoyed there trip to the river and a ride in Stephens’ boat, where they did see a moose and her calf. This is the second year we were privileged to have them stop here at our church, and I am sure we will have more next year too. It has been a joy and privilege to meet these amazing young people.
Dorothy Simmons,
Paradise
Research more about Common Core
After reading last week’s glowing “With A New Year Comes Change” featured article, one would never think to question any of the “sweeping reforms to the way students will be assessed during the school year.” There’s really nothing to see here is what the four Superintendents of Sanders County School Districts would have you believe. The accepted mantra is Common Core does not engage in progressive social engineering pushing one size fits all to teach a global citizenry; does not engage in student data mining; nor does centralized control by the Federal government exist.
The news article mentions federal grant funding for Hot Springs will help “establish a program that promotes college and career readiness” while the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) system will assist Noxon educators to “better understand how students are learning and will allow for new testing systems that will better gauge student’s progress throughout the year.” Thompson Falls schools are committed to “gearing their kids for 21st century learning” and preparing them for that “different” world, while Plains School District “has not looked at any policy changes.” Again, nothing for resident taxpayers, unsuspecting parents and dedicated teachers to question here about Common Core.
Of note, however, money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Stimulus) made it possible for states to develop data systems to catalog data generated by Common Core aligned tests. Montana Office of Public Instruction was awarded a $5,798,457 Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems federal grant in 2009 and another federal grant of $3,977,861 was awarded for College and Career Ready Montana in 2012. That’s a whopping $9,776,318 of your taxpayer dollars. Ask yourself if no eyebrows should be raised about Common Core’s data mining efforts, then why did the U.S. Department of Education “reinterpret” the regulations governing the release of student data to the private sector without Congressional authorization in December, 2011? Ask yourself about other previous changes such as what is the end game of the new “fuzzy” math -- lattice methods and partial products methods; even a dependence on calculators? How about removing cursive writing from curriculum?
I invite readers to “google” an August 2, 2013 American Thinker article by Dr. Carole Hornsby Haynes entitled Common Core’s Data Mining Trojan Horse to receive an excellent synopsis of what has actually occurred and is still being planned for implementation. Research more about Common Core – - its content, legality, costs to state budgets, intrusion of local control, data collection and career path tracking on website montanansagainstcommoncore.com.
Do you tell yourself there’s basically nothing to be concerned about here --- everything’s normal --- I’ll just look the other way and trust my taxpayer monies are invested well. Do you owe the futures of your children and grandchildren to get involved? Or, is the almighty federal dollar that much more important?
Kathleen Hassan,
Trout Creek