Wows and Scowls
Scowl: That tune you’ve been hearing is the nation’s school children singing Sam Cooke’s lyrics from “Wonderful World.” Students in fourth, eight and 12th grade demonstrated that they “don’t know much about history.” On the plus side students in 2001 did slightly better on an American history test given by the National Assessment of Education Process than the same grades scored the last time this knowledge was measured in 1994. In the lower grades, most students showed a ‘basic” grasp of history although they were far from “proficient,” defined as being able to apply knowledge to actual situations. By the time students graduate from high school they are poorly prepared in citizenship. Just 43 percent of the seniors were at or above “basic” and merely 11 percent were proficient. Diane Ravitch, an education advisor to the Bush administration, told the Associated Press the seniors’ scores were “truly abysmal.” “Since the seniors are very close to voting age or already have reached it, one can only feel alarm that they know so little about their nation’s history and express so little capacity to reflect on its meaning,” she said.
This is a chilling concept as today’s students are tomorrow’s stewards of our government.
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Wow: U.S. postal carriers were again on the front lines of terrorism when a suspect planted pipe bombs in rural mailboxes across four states, injuring six people. Even before the suspect was arrested, the postal service announced that it wouldn’t be deterred from holding an annual mailbox food drive scheduled for Saturday. During the last nine years more than 460 million pounds of food, 70 million last year alone, have been collected in the drive organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers. While the mail still must go through, letter carriers are under no obligation to volunteer to pick up packages of food during these times when even benign letters appear suspicious. Hats off to the carriers for continuing to do so.
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Scowl: Say it isn’t so. An environmental group claims that chocolate candy bars contain enough lead and cadmium that children who gobble Hershey Kisses or munch on Nestle Crunch bars could suffer impaired intellectual development, kidney disease and inflammation in the lungs.
The American Environmental Safety Institute has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to force chocolate makers to slap warning labels on their products to caution that they contain potentially hazardous levels of lead and cadmium. Attorneys for chocolate makers deny this and so do researchers with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Until this allegation is settled though, you might want to error on the side of safety and gather up the youngsters’ candy bars. As a public service, we’ll offer to dispose of them for you.
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Scowl: There’s something about money that turns friends into foes. Some $60 million in donations poured into the Uniformed Firefighters Association following Sept. 11. The union now wants to hang onto the funds and invest them so that each family of a fallen firefighter will receive an initial $20,000 payment and $3,000 every year for each spouse and child, with a final $50,000 payment to each child on reaching 24 years of age. The firefighters’ relatives have a few problems with this: some of the firefighters were single and childless so their kin are cut off from the fund, the union retains control of all the money and it wants to help out families of all firefighters killed in the line of duty, not just those who perished in the Sept. 11 tragedy. The Red Cross faced similar criticism when it attempted to use Sept. 11 donations for other programs. The Red Cross reversed course. The firefighters union ought to review its proposal as well. Not everyone will be pleased with a disbursement plan, but there is probably a better way to stem growing animosity.
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Wow: Good news for those who travel through the congested shopping areas near Uniontown. PennDOT announced that as the county and township officials requested, so shall they receive. Included in the proposed 12-year transportation plan is $450,000 for preliminary and engineering studies to upgrade Mathew Drive. PennDOT and the county earlier had seemed at odds over listing priority projects, which in part is causing the commissioners to decide whether they should join a regional planning agency for more clout in making transportation decisions.
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Wow: Congratulations to eight area teachers who were honored this week as Educators of the Year by the Fayette, Greater Brownsville and Greater Connellsville chambers of commerce. The teachers were nominated for their outstanding dedication to the profession and their ability to motivate students.