Letters to the Editors

Voucher battle is really about teachers' jobs

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 30, 2000

Re: Vouchers blur lines of power, May 28.

Under the GI Bill and the Pell Grant programs, recipients who qualify can use federal tax dollars to attend any college level school of their choice, public, private or religious. I do not recall any wailing about "separation of church and state" regarding these programs, which have benefitted tens of thousands.

Now several states, including Florida, wish to send certain tax dollars in the form of vouchers to certain children/families who qualify, thus allowing them to attend any school of their choice, public, private or religious, and we are hearing howls of outrage and protest about violating the concept of "separation of church and state." Why all this concern but not regarding the GI Bill and Pell Grants?

The answer is that the huge and politically powerful public teachers' unions are leading the vociferous opposition! A distressing number of public schools and teachers are not getting the job done and many of their administrators are superfluous, patronage employees. They will be the first to suffer loss when parents armed with vouchers flee the public school system's clutches in droves! The pension funding of all teachers who do survive student/parent flight and the resulting house cleaning may be in jeopardy as well.

The attacks on vouchers have nothing to do with the church/state smoke screen! They have nothing to do with any putative concern for students. It's all teacher union job security, stupid !
-- M. Inge Johnstone, Ozona

Vouchers offer an empty promise

Re: School children as voucher pawns, May 15 and Voucher program front and center, May 21.

Rhetoric and politics aside, Florida educational vouchers are a lose-lose proposition and a recipe for certain failure. They are an empty promise, addressing neither the needs of the student nor his schools -- old and new. They unfairly siphon funds from the public to the private sector. Worse, improperly supported, they potentially set up the recipient student and his family for yet another failed educational experience.

Vouchers will certainly overload private schools. As a product of 16 years of private education and a parent of three children with experience in both public and private schools, I can speak to the many advantages and disadvantages of private education. Any student performing at or above grade level will typically do equally as well in a private school. However, for students who bring exceptional challenges to education, vouchers are not enough to improve their educational opportunities. The reality is that private schools are for the most part not ready and willing to support those challenges. Operating near or over capacity, private schools have neither the incentive, space nor the resources to properly support these students.

Today, private schools depend to varying degrees on public school resources for a variety of services, including student psychological testing, learning and behavioral disorder testing and gifted placement, to name just a few. Voucher referrals for students with special needs unfairly increase this service load on the public schools while siphoning the dollars to support these services from the public to the private schools.

What assurance do we have that voucher-referred students have any chance of success at their new schools? What options are available for the student whose first voucher referral is unsatisfactory?

Our challenge should be to identify and build upon the common threads in successful private and public education. Starting with proven ingredients such as teacher and administration commitment, passion for education, parental involvement and sacrifice, business and community partnering, we have the basis for modeling, mentoring and replicating educational excellence.

The choice is ours: Do we utilize vouchers and transfer educational challenges from public to the private sector? Or distill, replicate and expand the best of our public and private educational models?
-- Michael W. Doyle, Clearwater

Emissions testing still need

Re: Air quality fuels drive to retain emissions tests, May 26.

I am in agreement with the American Lung Association that we need to retain auto emissions testing. With the growth of Pinellas County and the number of automobiles on the road, we need to have some control on vehicles that do not belong on the roads. Emissions testing either keeps them off the roads or gets problems fixed.

I urge Gov. Bush not to stop emissions testing.
-- J.C. Quimby, Largo

A dredge-and-fill legacy

Re: Environment has few GOP friends, by Martin Dyckman, May 9.

I'm inclined to agree. Republicans gained control of Pinellas County during the 1950s. From that time on, dredge-and-fill developers were allowed to go full speed ahead in enlarging a number of existing islands, creating man-made islands and finger fills that hung like leeches along the banks of Boca Ciega Bay. The houses and condos erected thereon did nothing to help our water situation. No telling where it would have stopped had we not fought to get a law limiting this practice.

Both political parties have environmental plusses and minuses. I do not trust the current state legislators because of the horrible anti-environmental legislation they tried to push through. Can't the two parties work together for the good of our state? Must we have a one-party dictatorship?
-- Beth Stiles, St. Petersburg

Influence of money distorts the system

Re: Republicans have come to the aid of environment, letter May 15.

Rep. Dennis Jones' response to Martin Dyckman's May 9 column made no mention of the courageous stand by Sen. Jack Latvala and Senate President Toni Jennings against a bill promoted by the lobbyists of land developers and agri-businesses. Both of these leading Republicans spared their party an enormous embarrassment by putting the people they represent over and above considerations of campaign finances. I personally wish to thank them as, indeed, Republicans who have come to the aid of the environment.

The question, however, is: How long can we endure a system of campaign financing that affronts the very basis of our Democratic institutions? If those with the most money have the most influence, democracy becomes an oligarchy of private interests. John McCain, an outstanding Republican, recognizes this incipient cancer to our political process but has been stymied and vilified for his attempts to bring this issue to prominence before the American people. The right to free expression as guaranteed in our Bill of Rights should not be used to mask such an insidious undermining of the Democratic process.

Case in point is a bill now before the U.S. Congress to punish bankruptcy. Experts agree it is overkill, and its only reason for possible passage is the enormous amounts of money spent on its behalf by the lobbyists of the credit institutions. This lobbying, I believe, was the real concern expressed by Dyckman in his column, and unless it is addressed soon by both political parties, this state and this nation will suffer the consequences of such indifference.
-- Paul E. Lupone, Spring Hill

An ethical broker

For years I have been an enthusiastic follower of the various articles written by St. Petersburg Times reporter Helen Huntley. In 1986 she wrote an in-depth review of a bad options-strategy debacle in the brokerage office I was managing. It was on point and titled Investors are angry. Her crusade for better informed investors deserves great credit.

Earlier this month, she wrote an excellent article about the dealings of AC Financial and how it had been selling fraudulent stock issues. Again it was a good expose of security firm abuse.

However, in the article there was a highlighted quote that singled out one of the brokers who had worked for the firm. This referred to Harry J. Dritsas, who under no circumstance should be held in any but the most positive light. As all of Mr. Dritsas' clients and ex-colleagues would attest, he has through his long career, which started in 1960, been one of the most conscientious and ethical brokers to have sold investments in the Clearwater area. It would be a shame to see this meritorious career tarnished with even the slightest allusion to impropriety.
-- John A. Sloan, Clearwater

A bias regarding the housing authority

There seems to be a bias in the press coverage of matters related to the St. Petersburg Housing Authority. I am a woman with a disability who would not be able to take care of herself without the rent subsidy the housing authority provides. I serve on a nine-person resident advisory board created to provide input on the goals and budget of the SPHA. Of course, my primary concern is for the well-being of the residents served by SPHA.

No reader with an ounce of interest could avoid being alerted to the problems with the Jordan Park community. I have been on the "inside" and can't begin to differentiate legitimate problems from the unsubstantiated accusations, political posturing and playing to the media that have infected this process. It's hard not to notice that nearly every article on these conflicts also displays a picture of the executive director, Darrell Irions. For the record, Irions makes no important policy decisions outside the HUD regulations and without the approval of an independent board of commissioners. All policy decisions are also reviewed by several elected or appointed resident committees. Still, I have yet to see photos of any other related parties, especially the people making the charges or filing the suits.

I personally have seen several "good faith" attempts to rectify reasonable complaints with Jordan Park residents. By now the only people who show up for posted meetings are the handful of angry tenants and disgruntled former employees the press covers repeatedly. For this handful of angry people the press coverage has energized and validated their, at best, exaggerations. The litigants have found funding for lawsuits from long-term adversaries of SPHA. To my knowledge there has been no publicized scrutiny of the litigants or the groups funding them. By now the press has become an independent influence on the story, not just the medium for reporting it.

In no way do I mean to diminish the importance of the 61 families still residing at Jordan Park. On the other hand, these well-publicized attacks on SPHA are becoming obstacles in the development of other programs and services for the remaining 2,900 residents relying on the credibility of their housing authority.
-- Sara B. Benton, St. Petersburg

Curfew violates rights

Re: Pinellas Park curfew restored, May 18.

The fact that it's now a crime to be out in public at certain times in Pinellas Park is a disturbing violation of the rights of both young people and their parents. What would the outrage be if they chose any other disempowered group and said they are no longer free to come and go as they please?

It's a pity that in Pinellas Park, children are viewed as such a threat to the common welfare. Perhaps visitors should be given a pamphlet upon entering Pinellas Park informing them of any other provincial edicts that have revised the Bill of Rights.
-- Lance Lubin, St. Petersburg

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