Dear
Friends,
Good morning. Last week’s column
about the state of public schools struck a few nerves. I’ll share what
Christopher Goerlitz and Kenneth Moyer thought about it. What surprised me was
that no one complained about the Heidi Fleiss portion…yet. She’s the madam
who’s planning to open a reverse bordello in Nevada.
But first, a thank you to the Quakertown National
Bank which provided the funds for a defibrillator at the Senior Center in
Quakertown. Nancy Keenan, a board member of the Bucks County Association for
Retired and Senior Citizens, alerted me to the presentation. The Area Agency on
Aging gave its “Friends of Seniors Award” to Tom Bisko, QNB’s President.
M. W. Ernst, the Center’s Manager, told me that
Quakertown was the last of the 13 Bucks senior centers to receive the automated
external defibrillator and training. Three people are trained and certified by
the American Heart Association. Ernst hopes to have more members trained soon.
Item.
Tom Bonekemper wrote to me
about whether medical and law schools at
“Pennsylvania now has an adequate number of medical
schools (Penn, Jefferson, Temple, Drexel, Penn State and Pitt) plus osteopathic
schools in Erie and Philadelphia. PA ranks 4th in the country in
number of residents (doctors in training post M. D.) with only Mass, NY and RI
having more residents per population. Unfortunately PA ranks 41st in
the country in percent of physicians under the age of 35. Thus a long-term
shortage is predicted with the aging population. Why the discrepancy?
“A report in the Delaware County Times noted that 92
percent of the residents who completed training in 2004 left the state. I noted
a survey in June that 77 Percent of the residents plan to go elsewhere when
finished training. The specific figure is less important than the fact that PA
trains more than enough doctors, but few stay because of the malpractice
crisis.
“Solving the malpractice crisis would be more
effective than another medical school in creasing the physician supply over the
long term. Drexel just started a law school, but we already have one lawyer for
every 298 PA citizens. Obviously, we do not need more lawyers.”
Thanks for the news, Tom.
Item
Did you see that Quakertown Councilman Dave Wilsey
plans to oppose Rob Wonderling in the state senate this year? He’s a good man
but will have a tough road ahead. Incumbents win reelection campaigns over 90
percent of the time.
As you know, I’m a fan of term limits. Some day
soon, I’ll rant and rave about why the congress and 50 state legislatures are
filled with election proof villains. Just think for a minute. Do you think we’d
have scandals in Washington and illegal pay grabs in Pennsylvania…or inaction
on such important topics as education, health care, property tax relief,
energy, mass transit, government snooping, and compulsory service…if we
prohibited legislators from serving more than 12 years?
And finally to Goerlitz and
Moyer.
Both objected to my comments about the 20/20 TV show on ABC, which was critical
of America’s public schools.
“As a former publisher, I was surprised you’d take
[John] Stossel’s “reporting,” given his history, at face value without any fact
checking of your own,” Goerlitz began. “It is very easy to do, in fact,
MediaMatters for America http://mediamatters.org/items/200601200003
has taken the trouble of doing it for you. Perhaps in the future, you might do
a bit of homework on your own…or is that too much to ask?”
Goerlitz continued with this key paragraph: “Through
a series of misleading claims, a lack of balance in reporting and interviews,
and video clips apparently created primarily for entertainment, Stossel’s
report failed to offer viewers an accurate picture of the debate over charter
schools and voucher programs, and gave significantly greater coverage to the
arguments of “school choice” proponents, with Stossel frequently criticizing
public schools.”
If you send me your email address, I’ll forward his
letter to you.
Kenneth Moyer, a Quakertown native, sent an
interesting and convincing letter in opposition to the Stossel TV program. I’ll
reserve more room for Moyer’s response in a week or two…but here are a few
graphs in the meantime.
“As an educator with 35 years of experience in a
successful public school, I believe that giving parents a choice among a
variety of public schools and non-religious charter schools is probably a good
idea,” Moyer began. “There is a lot that can be improved in public education,
even in the best schools. And some public schools are indeed embarrassing. But
voucher-supported religious education needs to be avoided. After all, isn’t
state-sponsored militant Islamic education one thing we are fighting in the
Middle East?
“Contrary to public perception, tenure laws and
teachers’ unions do not condone nor protect the inept. They do insure “due
process” for teachers, something that was not part of the landscape in the good
old days of spinster schoolmarms who lived at home with their parents and were
in bed by 8:30 p.m. Perhaps an army of poorly paid teachers who could be fired
at the whim of the school board is the solution to poor international test
scores. More likely, the solution is a bit more complex.”
I’ll close with this Associated Press story about
illiteracy (Jan. 20).
“More than 50 percent of students at four-year
schools and 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform
complex literacy tasks,” AP began. “That means they could not interpret a table
about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper
editorials, compare credit-card offers with different interest rates and annual
fees, or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.”
Stay tuned.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith