Letters

Backs Pakootas

We’ve all been appalled by the lack of effective legislation passed by this Congress in which our representative, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, is a Republican leader. It is apparent that the problem is their lack of willingness to work with the President on any major questions. Our representative, instead, voted to sue him.

This year, we have the opportunity to vote for a change-agent who has done the hard work of bringing two sides together for the common good. As CEO of the Colville Confederated Tribes, he is credited with the economic turnaround of their Federal Corporation which, by focusing on sustainable business enterprises, delivered a multi-million dollar revenue stream to the Reservation and business opportunities and jobs to the surrounding communities.

Joe Pakootas will defend and support the healthcare reforms, including expanded coverage for women.

Unlike our present representative, Joe would say “yes” to equal pay for equal work, background checks at all gun sales, job creation legislation, children’s health and nutrition programs, etc.

He would be a voice for all to be able to start the day with a good breakfast, to go to a good school, to get a good-paying job, to enjoy respite in an environment with clean air and water.

Send in your ballot today and vote for Joe Pakootas for Congress.

Carolyn Cress,

Pullman

‘Lead forth’

Don Orlich’s letter in last week’s Gazette described an experiment by the state of Tennessee in which students in grades K-3 were randomly assigned to classes of differing sizes. Orlich noted that “students from all economic, racial and social classes from inner city, urban, suburban and rural locales,” were included, a good cross section of participants.

The experiment demonstrated two basic results: students from the smallest class sizes outperformed all other groups on standard tests covering “science, social studies, study skills and reading,” and they were the top-performing students in the state all the way through high school. These were corroborated by a Harvard statistician.

Those kids were “educated” in the basic sense of the word: at its Latin root, “educate” means “to lead forth,” as in drawing out one’s inherent potential.

It’s reasonable to assume that in their first four years of exposure to formal education, smaller classes allowed the children to receive more personal attention than their peers received from teachers in larger classes. Teachers in the smaller classes had time to “nurture” potential in those kids, to equip them to do well on standardized tests in those grades.

But more importantly, this nurturing enabled those children to control their own education beyond grade three without the benefit of small classes. In other words the small classes, early in their education, empowered the children to continue educating themselves, even though they were not necessarily in smaller classes, for the rest of their public school education.

The implications of these results are profound: given an early, nurturing start in the education process, children are likely to continue to educate themselves as they progress through the school system.

These results support observations my wife and I made when our own children were very young: children are intensely curious, they are receptive to loving guidance, and given the opportunity, they’re “learning machines.” We’ve developed and taught classes to young parents based around these principles. Our observations have been further reinforced as we’ve watched our children’s families employ similar educational philosophy with our grandchildren.

Orlich’s comments on supporting a modified version of Initiative 1251 that limits the initiative to K-3 students deserves serious consideration.

Pete Haug,

Colfax

Independent voice

So the Republican House of Representatives leadership now wants to sue President Obama over certain executive orders, even though he has made less of them than most other presidents. But the real ethical, if not legal, offense is that the Republican leadership, including our Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, won’t allow a vote of the full House on the Senate-passed immigration bill S.744 even though it has enough House votes to pass and thus become law with Obama’s promised signature.

Please join me and vote for Joe Pakootas who will represent all of the people with an independent voice rather than simply echo the political leadership.

Norm Luther,

Spokane

Questions

The way this country is headed, I have a hundred different questions about where we are going. The most compelling one I have seems to be: how stupid does a person get before they fall into an imbecillic coma? Must we wait two more years for the answer?

This country won’t last two more years with a leader who has led six years by absentia.

Mel Mundell,

Garfield

Real culprit

I recently read an article in a small newspaper about the demise of good postal service and the need to close some postal facilities as was suggested last year with the possible closing of the Waverly post office. The article did not mention the real culprit for postal problems is the U.S. House of Representatives. If there is a problem with the Post Office, they are to blame.

In 2006, during the lame duck session, Congress passed the Postal Reform Bill and President George W. Bush signed it into to law. I believe the purpose of this bill was to basically bankrupt the Postal System so it would be privatized, as they were trying to privatize almost every Governmental program during that session of Congress. The Postal Reform bill requires the Post Office to prefund the postal employee’s retirement and health insurance program 75 years in advance and to prefund the 75 years over a 10 year period. No business can survive with such a “horse collar” around its neck.

Think of it, they are forced to fund retirement packages for employees that haven’t even been born yet. According to the Wall Street Journal, the pension contributions for 2013 was almost $11.2 billion. That is a lot of 49 cent stamps and letters. That is the reason why the Post Office is operating at a deficit and is trying to consolidate services to become more efficient even if services to smaller communities are reduced. They have to meet that Congressional mandate.

The Senate has passed bills to the repeal this onerous burden during the last two sessions of Congress, but the Republican House Speaker John Boehner will not bring it to a vote. Thus if you have a quarrel with the Post Office about post office closings and poor service, you better contact Republican Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers and demand that she and the House of Representatives repeal this act.

Since it is election year, you might want to remember her actions when you cast your ballot.

Carl M. Ogren,

Colfax