The Gazette OUROPINION
Forum
Thursday, November 21, 2013
|
Page A-11
LETTERS TOT HE EDITOR
Do the right thing: Stop bullying the Redskins
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Prince George’s County schools CEO Kevin Maxwell talks about challenges in the school system with The Gazette editorial board Nov. 14.
Finding new hope for old challenges
To say that Prince George’s schools CEO Kevin Maxwell has his hands full may be the understatement of the year. Hired this past summer, Maxwell is hoping to make gains in a long struggling school system at a time of significant upheaval in county and state education — and at a point when many Prince George’s parents have run out of patience. And, as he noted in a Nov. 14 interview with The Gazette editorial board, “We’re a big organization. One of the largest in the country.” The topic of school security alone could fill up much of his days. He’s seeking installation of a security sysSCHOOL CEO tem at county schools that visitors’ identification HAS MAJOR TASK; scans cards using information from COUNTY NEEDS other databases in deciding MAJOR RESULTS whether to allow access to a school (people listed on the sexual offender registry would be flagged, for example). Some county schools have systems that scan IDs, but the system doesn’t use other databases. He’s also debating whether to put high fences around temporary classrooms to better secure the trailer-like structures, and believes security training in schools and administrative offices needs to be increased. The condition of school buildings is yet another Pandora’s box. Many county schools are old and in such bad shape that funding has struggled to keep up with facility needs. Maxwell is eyeing the different possibilities regarding funding, such as whether the school system could get upfront state aid rather than getting it piecemeal over multiple years. He’s also pushing for more efficient ways of planning facility improvements, to include better coordination between agencies. And those issues are just the tip of the iceberg. Prince George’s students’ test scores rank near or at the bottom each year on state tests. With the implementation underway of new national education standards, the Common Core curriculum, Maxwell said scores are likely to take a dip when students take the new test aligned with the curriculum next school year. Granted, a drop in scores is expected in general on the new tests, but such news can be particularly hard to take in a county where, at some schools, less than half the students score proficient or advanced in reading and math. Add in the problem of teachers fleeing for higher paying jobs elsewhere, a controversial teacher evaluation system, needed expansion of specialty education programs, low parental involvement and a school system structure that was overhauled just weeks before he was hired, and it’s clear that he’ll earn every bit of his $290,000 annual salary if he actually brings results. And he’s optimistic that he will, explaining that parents should be able to see real differences in schools as early as a year from now. Maxwell said he has a team focusing on improving the county’s graduation rate, is working collaboratively with other agencies and organizations to provide school resources, and hopes to release a plan soon outlining an expansion of specialty education programs, if funding allows. He understands the need to see significant progress in the school system and put his challenge in very simple terms: “We have to get better faster than other districts.” It’s not the first time a new school leader has come to the county armed with good intentions and great ideas, but Maxwell is different in that he actually knows the county. He began his education career in Prince George’s in 1978, is a longtime Bowie resident, had children graduate from the school system and was a former principal in Prince George’s. His background allows him to bypass the learning curve many superintendents have had in figuring out the system’s challenges, and he’s less likely to bail for a job in another state given his roots in Prince George’s. Nevertheless, the road ahead will be rough, and residents who haven’t had a superintendent last more than four years in more than two decades will understandably be skeptical about whether Maxwell is the real deal or another peddler of hope. Now, more than ever, results matter.
The Gazette Douglas S. Hayes, Associate Publisher
I have been hearing the controversy over the Redskins name, most recently in your Letters to the Editors section on Oct. 31. I take offense that this issue has been twisted into a “moral dilemma” and likened to instances of childhood (or adult) name-calling. It’s time that people stand up to the radical political correctness agenda and say enough is enough. The Washington Redskins are not calling anyone names. The Washington Redskins have chosen a distinguished logo and named themselves. This name has existed since 1933 as a tribute to then head coach, William “Lone Star” Dietz, who was believed to have a Native American heritage. It was also an evolution of the previous name, the “Braves,” that referenced Native Americans but was changed due to confusion with the Boston Braves baseball team. The time for outrage, if ever, was in 1933 when the name was changed. The time for acceptance that the word has evolved in meaning and context is now, in 2013. The people urging for sensitivity and political correctness neglect to view the word in the context it is being used. There
A word is not a racial slur simply because someone chooses to categorize it that way, or even if in a different time or context it was used that way. is an extreme difference between being called a “damned Yankee” in a New York baseball stadium and being called a “damned Yankee” in a southern tavern. One of those scenarios more than likely precipitates a fistfight. The same can be argued for the Redskins team name. The danger of this radical political correctness is that it rips words from their contexts and infuses them with the omnipotent power to offend despite the actual meaning behind them. When did making a racial slur stop
Ken Sain, Sports Editor Dan Gross, Photo Editor Jessica Loder, Web Editor
Meredith Pendergrass, Bowie
Kennedy’s education dream left unfulfilled “A child miseducated is a child lost.” — JFK. Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. My fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Turner, steps out of the classroom for a minute and returns, visibly shaken, to announce we will be dismissed to the buses and sent home a little early today because President Kennedy has been killed in Dallas. The baby boom generation’s first socalled “flashbulb” memory, virtually everyone alive on Nov. 22, 1963, remembers, with almost photographic precision, the moment they heard the news. Indelibly burned into my mind’s eye is the image of my mother, Kleenex in hand, her eyes swollen from an afternoon of weeping in front of the television waiting on every word from Walter Cronkite, then the news anchorman for CBS. Given the vivid nature of the memories, it is difficult to comprehend that half a century separates us from that dark hour of American history.
It is fraught with unintended irony that the end of American Education Week this year will coincide with a landmark anniversary of such a deep scar on our national psyche. Is it not worrisome that, in the intervening decades, we have never again focused with such laser-like intensity on achievable national goals such as landing a man on the moon and returning him safely? Is it not disturbing that political agendas now seem most intent on erecting roadblocks and barricades to noble and visionary causes? My generation, the one called to commit itself to national service and the common good, will forever wonder whether JFK might have inspired this nation to achieve his goal of giving all children “the right to an education to the limit of their ability.” As we celebrate our educational accomplishments and set our goals for the future, it is abundantly clear that this nation possesses sufficient resources to meet the needs of every child. It is not clear, however, that we will ever muster the po-
litical will to render ZIP codes irrelevant to educational opportunity so that we create a world free of the concept of disposable children. Kenneth B. Haines is the president of the Prince George’s County Educators’ Association.
Send your letters
Letters must include the writer’s name, address and telephone number. The phone number will not be published; it is for verification purposes only. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Letters selected may be shortened for space reasons. Send letters to: Editor, Gazette Newspapers, 13501 Virginia Manor Road, Laurel, MD 20707. E-mail them to princegeorges@ gazette.net.
Election tea leaves Any lessons from the Nov. 5 “off year” elections in New Jersey, Virginia and a host of small Maryland municipalities? Thanks to his impressive victory in New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie is the frontrunner for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination. Pundits say he’s the perfect “crossover” moderate who can attract Democrats and independents because he won 32 percent of New Jersey’s Democrats, 21 percent of blacks, 57 percent of women and 51 percent of Latinos. But Christie has two problems: first, he’s being set up by the national media with the same “I’ll call you in the morning” treatment John McCain got when he opposed George Bush in 2000. The MY MARYLAND media promoted BLAIR LEE McCain to undermine Bush but, in 2008, dropped McCain like a hot rock in favor of Barack Obama. Likewise, today’s media is using Christie to undermine the tea party, but in 2016 Chris Christie will wonder why all his gushing media buddies are lined up behind Hillary Clinton. Christie’s second problem is the tea party, whom he must convince that he’s not a RINO (Republican in name only). That’s a tough sell even though Christie has pretty solid conservative credentials: vetoed gay marriage, cut taxes, stood up to employee unions, pro-life and so on. But he took a pass on Mitt Romney’s campaign, hasn’t helped conservative candidates elsewhere and buddied up with Obama after Hurricane Sandy. Christie can never out-tea party Ted Cruz or Rand Paul, who also covet the 2016 nomination. But only Christie has a credible chance of defeating Hillary. And that, in a nutshell, is the GOP’s conundrum. The purpose of a political party is to win the election and run the government in accordance with its political philoso-
phy. It’s a package deal: The party’s philosophy must inspire enough voters to win the election. Right now the GOP is in the midst of realigning its political philosophy so that it accommodates its tea party base while winning national elections. Shifts in national events and passions shape political parties, not the other way around. Parties are the manifestation of changes in the popular will. When events cause a popular uprising significant enough to attract large numbers of voters, the political parties must absorb the movement before it morphs into a third political party. The Whig party stood for industrialization but opposed Manifest Destiny, the Mexican War and Andrew Jackson. However, when slavery overshadowed expansion, it split the Whigs and gave birth to the anti-slavery Republican Party and the Civil War. Sidelined for decades after the Civil War, the Democrats finally regained control by forming an unholy alliance of northern workers, western farmers and southern segregationists, a deal that sold blacks down the river. The 1960s social upheavals saw another realignment as southern whites became Republicans while the Democratic Party became the party of racial minorities (the last Democratic presidential candidate to win a white majority was LBJ in 1964). Now the Republicans must accommodate those Americans upset by debt, dysfunction and moral decline (the tea party) by making their concerns the party’s top agenda items. Then, it must convince a national majority to agree. It’s a tough task being made easier by the Democrats. The Obamacare debacle almost pulled out a victory for a Virginia gubernatorial candidate who had everything going against him. Also, last month, Kay Hagan, the North Carolina Dem swept into the U.S. Senate by Obama’s 2008 win, was ahead by double digits. Now she’s trailing her chief GOP rival by one point. The worse Obamacare grows, the more it
13501 Virginia Manor Road, Laurel, MD 20707 | Phone: 240-473-7500 | Fax: 240-473-7501 | Email: princegeorges@gazette.net More letters appear online at www.gazette.net/opinion
Vanessa Harrington, Editor Glen C. Cullen, Senior Editor Copy/Design Meredith Hooker,Managing Editor Internet Nathan Oravec, A&E Editor
requiring the speaker to be racist and actually intend to make a slur? A word is not a racial slur simply because someone chooses to categorize it that way, or even if in a different time or context it was used that way. In the year 2013, the Redskins name has been emptied of any historical offense and is not used abusively, it is uttered innocently by proud sports fans. The meanings of words evolve over time and to neglect the ebb and flow of our lexicon in order to feign offense is absurd. In its worst light, if the Redskins name is deemed to offend some, there is no right to be free from being offended. The segment of the population that has gotten better than ever at finding reasons to take offense should not have the power to pressure a team to abandon their First Amendment rights of choosing their own name. This issue is not about taking responsibility, being role models to our children or name-calling; it’s about learning to tolerate the choices of others even if they are not the same ones you would make. It’s about respecting diversity in this country even if the beliefs of others offend you.
Dennis Wilston, Corporate Advertising Director Doug Baum, Corporate Classifieds Director Mona Bass, Inside Classifieds Director
Jean Casey, Director of Marketing and Circulation Anna Joyce, Creative Director, Special Pubs/Internet Ellen Pankake, Director of Creative Services
looks like a 2014 game changer for Republicans whose slogan will be, “We told you so.” Meanwhile, all’s quiet back in Maryland where voters returned the incumbents in Gaithersburg, Takoma Park, Bowie, Rockville, Annapolis, College Park, Frederick and so on. The big exception was the Annapolis mayor’s race where a Republican narrowly defeated the incumbent Democrat. In typical one-party think, the majority Democratic City Council considered legislation stripping the new mayor of all his powers but a voter backlash now has the council in hasty retreat. Otherwise, not a blip on the radar. Looks like the 2010 elections all over again when the national tea party rebellion (“shellacking,” said Obama) swept the nation but bypassed Maryland. If there’s a voter rebellion brewing in Maryland, you sure couldn’t tell it by the recent elections. But here’s a good sidebar: In 2005 the legislature passed a law that says no person can “willfully and knowingly influence or attempt to influence a voter’s decision whether to go to the polls ... through the use of force, fraud, threat, menace” etc. Two Ehrlich campaigners were tried and convicted for using fake election day robocalls telling blacks to stay home because Obama and O’Malley were safely reelected. One of the campaigners actually went to jail. The recent elections saw a host of similar “dirty tricks” including phony Frederick robocalls about a candidate’s “unpaid taxes,” Annapolis lawn signs in black neighborhoods falsely linking a candidate to the tea party and robocalls went out to Frederick voters giving them the wrong polling place addresses. Is the state prosecutor investigating? Will anyone be charged, or tried or go to jail? Is the moon made of green cheese? Blair Lee is chairman of the board of Lee Development Group in Silver Spring and a regular commentator for WBAL radio. His email address is blairleeiv@gmail. com.
POST-NEWSWEEK MEDIA Karen Acton, Chief Executive Officer Michael T. McIntyre, Controller Donna Johnson, Vice President of Human Resources Maxine Minar, President, Comprint Military Shane Butcher, Director of Technology/Internet