Letters to the editor, May 6, 2008

More about math in schools

The California Teachers Association is really a union and, like every labor union, it has an unspoken motto, namely — more pay for less work. More pay is achieved by the threat of work stoppages and less work is achieved by having three or four people on the payroll where one person was plenty years ago.

All private companies saddled with labor unions have the same problems with unions, but companies are able to mitigate the added expenses by simply raising the prices for their products. School systems can only raise property taxes to meet union demands and meaningful education is a thing of the past.

The latest gimmick, as shown on the front page of the Dispatch on April 21, makes use of a communal computer being applied to teach a fifth grade class how to perform long division. Precious little they will learn with such an impractical method. Teaching the little scholars how to identify a square, a pentagon, an octagon, et cetera, and calling that geometry is a bit of exaggerating. Geometry used to begin with when two straight lines cross, the opposite angles are equal, so prove it. It came in the sophomore year of high school.

When your children reach the ninth grade and they are introduced to the general quadratic equation in an algebra class, will they be able to understand the steps to determine the value of “X”. Will they be able to solve for “X” and “Y” in a pair of simultaneous equations? Or will they and you parents then begin to realize how they were shortchanged in grade school?

Robert Annal
Barstow

On Sharpton and desert development

Well, as usual, Al Sharpton is promising to start another riot — so what else is new? If there is only one God there can be only one religion — right?

He is crying about one person when the government arrests 450 people in Texas for their beliefs. They should put Sharpton away for at least100 years. He has started a half dozen riots and is threatening more.

With the U.S. going down hill like a cannonball, now we are giving the desert to them. The Victorville area has military bases, power lines, gas lines, major freeways, so where better to give China control? If you look in the land records there are many plots owned by Chinese all over the desert. Do we need more?

With Bush bankrupting the nation and nothing is sight for the future, but Clinton, Obama, and McCain all wanting to take away our rights and give the country to the U.N. what can we expect but total disaster. With them, the U.S. will cease to exist within 20 years. Look at history it has happened to dozens of other nations and we are about due.

Barstow wanting to annex Yermo, Mike Henderson hit it right on the head. Yermo neither wants or needs anything about Barstow. Stay on the other side of the hill. They have been trying to steal our water supply for years. We don’t need any mismanagement like they have.

Joe Golden
Yermo