Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Letters to the Editor

Education gap persists

Your Oct. 9 Metropolitan article "Quarter of high-schoolers failing exit exams" quotes Columbia University's Teachers College professor Jay Heubert as saying states have set standards that are impossible for youngsters to meet. I would argue that many state standards are not set high enough to assure that our students are being prepared adequately for college or the modern workplace.

There is no question that far too many students are not receiving the supports they need to reach and surpass these benchmarks.

In particular, students of color, who make up the majority of the population in the two Maryland districts with the highest exam failure rates (Baltimore City and Prince George's County), are often subject to lower expectations and consequently tracked into less rigorous courses.

As a result, many lose interest in school and ultimately drop out; researchers have determined that graduation rates for Latino and black students in Maryland are just 65 percent and 62 percent, respectively, compared to 82 percent for white students.

Nationally, students of color are four times as likely as white students to attend high schools from which less than 60 percent of entering ninth- graders are enrolled as 12th- graders three years later — schools considered "dropout factories."

In order to ensure that all children stay in school and graduate prepared for postsecondary education and the workforce, schools, districts and states must make certain that standards and expectations are set high for all students. However, we also must make sure that resources, from classroom materials to high-quality teachers, are distributed equitably in all districts so that each student, regardless of background, will have an equally high chance of success in life.

BOB WISE

President

Alliance for Excellent Education

Washington

Armenian genocide resolution a "gesture of love"

The House Foreign Affairs Committee's 27-21 vote on H.R. 106, acknowledging the Armenian genocide ("Turkey, GOP warn against vote on genocide," Page 1, Monday) is a giant step forward for a more perfect democracy here in the United States and in the context of our image in the world, both for our allies and for our adversaries.

This is the greatest gesture of love and respect to the Turkish people. Our NATO brother-in-arms should know that, just as David Kaczynski brought his brother Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber) to justice, America will not stand idle for deniers of genocide.

It is a shame that the present administration still opposes this important human-rights achievement. It is a disgrace that there are still people among us who see no harm in denying a crime for profit.

This administration and its supporters marched into the White House as the defenders of faith and family values. They turned up to be a pack of wolves ready to sell America's honor to criminals.

KEVORK KALAYJIAN

Cliffside Park, N.J.

Christians should vote their conscience

I am a Christian. I am a conservative. I believe in the democratic process and believe it is the moral imperative that devout Christians involve themselves in the political process to make our society more fair and just for all.

Like most Christian conservatives, I gather information from Christian commentators in the media to help me cast my vote. As a responsible Christian, I am required to put all their words into passionate scrutiny to prevent the perversion of our faith.

My passion for seeing Christian values advanced in the political realm is matched only by my disappointment in those who represent those values but then sell them out for status or, even worse, money.

It has become obvious that Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, Richard Land and James Dobson have sold their influence over Christian voters to the highest bidder. They are trying to destroy every Republican candidate except multimillionaire Mitt Romney, with the hope that he somehow will become our only choice. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Mr. Romney was pro-abortion, pro-gun control and pro-gay civil union as governor of Taxachusetts.

American Christian voters will show these Christian leaders that we are sophisticated enough to recognize when a Christian leader has sold his influence.

We will not turn the presidential race into a plutocracy that makes it about how rich a candidate is instead of about the character and principles the candidate will bring to the presidency.

PHILL DACOSTA

Ball Ground, Ga.

A false Macedonian mantle

You published a Commentary column by Metodija A. Koloski that is as false as the use of the name Macedonia by the former Yugoglav republic ("Name dispute or ethnic misdeeds?" Sunday).

Since it emerged from the breakup of Yugolavia, this new state has taken a provocative stance against its neighbor to the south, which includes a propaganda campaign to rewrite history and portray its people as a distinct nationality that can be traced back to ancient times.

It has tried to adopt Greek symbols of Alexander the Great's dynasty and has renamed its national airport Alexander the Great International Airport.

Greece has good reason to be livid at such actions, because these Slavic-speaking people came into the Balkans in the sixth and seventh centuries. That was about 1,000 years after the death of Alexander the Great — the Greek hero who spread Hellenic culture to the then-known world and belonged to the same Greek tribe as the Spartans, the Dorians.

Add to this the fact that St. Paul the Apostle visited Greek cities in Macedonia, spoke Greek and wrote his New Testament letters to the people of Thessaloniki and Philippoi in the Greek language. St. Paul also clearly refers to "Greek men and women that he met in Thessaloniki and Verria and who were baptized into Christianity."

In his memoirs, the first president of the republic, Kiro Gligorov, admits that the Slavic people in the new state are Bulgarians.

This language was unknown until 1944, and no matter how hard one may try, one will find nothing to prove its existence. It is just an idiom within the self-contained Bulgarian language. The fact that there is not even one text, not one inscription, in this language before 1944 proves without doubt that this language has nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians and their descendants, who always spoke Greek. The language used by the Bulgarian-speaking inhabitants of southern Yugoslavia and southwestern Bulgaria is a Bulgarian language.

Mr. Koloski is simply wrong and deceptive to state that in 1904 an uprising was put down and the state aspirations of the people were crushed. In actuality, the people proclaimed the Republic of Krushevo and made no mention of Macedonia. Perhaps that is where they should look for national aspiration and not to Greece and its long and storied history.

NICK NIKOPOULOS

Toronto