www.dailycorinthian.com
Opinion
Reece Terry, publisher
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Friday, April 28, 2017
Corinth, Miss.
Letter to the editor
Mississippi continues to struggle with education To the Editor: More than 90% of all Mississippi kids attend public schools. That means that 90% of the state’s workforce, voters, parents, and leaders come from public schools. More than 60,000 teachers and support staff work in Mississippi’s public schools, and Mississippi state government spends more than $2 billion a year on public education. In addition, local taxpayers spend untold millions more. Is it any wonder that the subject of public education is always at the forefront for most Mississippians? It is no secret that Mississippi has struggled to improve its public school performance. No need to go through the statistics. We have some great public schools, but too many are failing or inadequate for the needs of their students. Too many kids go into the workforce or to college unprepared for the challenges they will face. Each year the legislature, the Governor, the State Department of Education, and various public interest groups propose ideas to improve educational outcomes. Some ideas work around the margins, and others make no appreciable difference. Few have resulted in significant improvements. Most often the debate is about the level of funding and the method of distribution of dollars among competing education interests and school districts. And lack of adequate funds remains a problem in most districts. But there is really only one fix for a broken school or school district – good leadership and community support. Until we figure out a way to give every school district a top notch superintendent, every school a competent principal, and every classroom a qualified teacher, we will not improve the system. It does not matter how much we spend. It will not happen. This year the legislature began the process of making every school superintendent position an appointed one. The argument is that moving from elected superintendents to appointments widens the pool of qualified applicants. That may be a good first step, but it is not enough. If the board that appoints the superintendent is incompetent or too political, they will not make a wise choice. And a bad superintendent is likely to make poor choices of principals and teachers. In Mississippi we have both appointed and elected superintendents who are great leaders and run exemplary districts and both elected and appointed superintendents who are poor leaders who lead failing districts. In the end, just making all superintendents appointed will make little difference in overall educational performance. We must insure that all school boards are careful in their selections, support their appointees, hire only competent teachers, manage their budgets effectively and are responsive the needs of the community. To do that we have to have parents and taxpayers who demand better schools in their districts. In the end, whether they are appointed or elected, putting qualified, committed people in charge is the only way to insure that high quality teaching and learning are going on in our classrooms. And that effort can only come from within our communities. There are no classrooms in the state capitol. School employees are local employees. They do not work for the state. They work for the taxpayers of the local school districts. Want to fix your schools? First you have to fix your leadership. No amount of money or Common Core or 3rd grade gate or charter schools or vouchers or merit pay or any other top down program can fix a broken system. Just wanting better schools is not enough. Just like successful cities require competent mayors and council members, successful school districts require competent superintendents and board members. Parents and taxpayers have to demand success from school leadership, or subpar schools will continue to produce subpar results. Cecil Brown Former Chairman of House Education Committee Jackson
Prayer for today Lord of light, thou art the light of my life. May I make thee the joy and light of my soul. Call me to where it is clear and high, that I may see above the mist. May I not weary in climbing to reach thee in the high places. Amen.
A verse to share The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? — Psalm 118:6
The real story on Trump’s 100 days BY DICK MORRIS AND EILEEN MCCANN Columnists
The really odd thing about Donald Trump’s first 100 days is that, Euclid notwithstanding, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The record of Trump’s 100 days is much better than the sum of his actual achievements. And, in a way, that was to be expected. It is the idea of Trump — much more than the reality of his actual programs — that represents radical change. And it is a belief in the kinds of decisions he will make — more than any specific policy reversals — that is persuading entrepreneurs to invest money, create jobs and take risks where they never would have done so under Barack Obama. Look at the comparison between the whole and its
parts:
The whole • Job growth up higher than Obama’s last three months. • Dow up 11 percent. • Nasdaq up 12 percent. • Existing home sales up 4 percent; new homes up 5 percent. • Trade deficit down 10 percent. • Barometer of current economic conditions highest since November 2000. • Illegal border crossings down. • Biggest jump in business confidence in eight years. Quite an impressive track record. But Obamacare is still on the books and the border wall is not begun. Trump’s signature proposals are still just proposals. So why the improvement? It’s because business
people and job creators have confidence in Donald Trump. And because, on dozens of different fronts, they can see that there is a new management in town. EPA, get out of the way • Keystone Pipeline approved. • Reversing Obama regulations on power plants. • Rolling back vehicle emission standards. • Killed regulations on small streams and rivers. Seal the border • Banned refugees from terrorist nations. • 5,000 new ICE agents. • No federal money to sanctuary cities. • Big cuts in H1-B Visas. Crime • Rescinded federal orders to local police limiting law enforcement. • Formed task force on opioid abuse.
• Ordered study on cutting attacks on police. Trade • Imposed $3 billion in fines for illegal imports. Health care • Ordered flexibility in rules for insurance plans. Draining the Swamp • Banned lobbying by former government employees for 5 years. • Lifetime ban on lobbying for foreign goats. • Cut two regulations for each new one. • Eliminated rules for federal contractors. • Federal hiring freeze. • Audit of all federal age ncies. Good measures to be sure, but hardly enough to account for the turnaround in confidence and business attitudes. So the real change, as always, was putting Trump in the Oval Office.
Is Macron the EU’s last best hope? For the French establishment, Sunday’s presidential election came close to a near-death experience. As the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo, it was a “damn near-run thing.” Neither candidate of the two major parties that have ruled France since Charles De Gaulle even made it into the runoff, an astonishing repudiation of France’s national elite. Marine Le Pen of the National Front ran second with 21.5 percent of the vote. Emmanuel Macron of the new party En Marche! won 23.8 percent. Macron is a heavy favorite on May 7. The Republicans’ Francois Fillon, who got 20 percent, and the Socialists’ Benoit Hamon, who got less than 7 percent, both have urged their supporters to save France by backing Macron. Ominously for U.S. ties, 61 percent of French voters chose Le Pen, Fillon or radical Socialist Jean-Luc Melenchon. All favor looser ties to America and repairing relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Le Pen has a mountain to climb to win, but she is clearly the favorite of the president of Russia, and perhaps of the president of the United States. Last week, Donald Trump volunteered: “She’s the strongest on borders, and she’s the strongest on what’s been going on in France. ... Whoever is the toughest on radical Islamic terrorism, and whoever is the toughest at the borders, will do well in the election.” As an indicator of his-
Reece Terry
Mark Boehler
publisher rterry@dailycorinthian.com
editor editor@dailycorinthian.com
Willie Walker
Roger Delgado
circulation manager circdirector@dailycorinthian.com
press foreman
toric trends in France, Le Pen seems likely to win twice the 18 percent her father, JeanPatrick Marie Le Buchanan Pen, won in 2002, when Columnist he lost in the runoff to Jacques Chirac. The campaign between now and May 7, however, could make the TrumpClinton race look like an altarpiece of democratic decorum. Not only are the differences between the candidates stark, Le Pen has every incentive to attack to solidify her base and lay down a predicate for the future failure of a Macron government. And Macron is vulnerable. He won because he is fresh, young, 39, and appealed to French youth as the anti-Le Pen. A personification of Robert Redford in “The Candidate.” But he has no established party behind him to take over the government, and he is an ex-Rothschild banker in a populist environment where bankers are as welcome as hedge-fund managers at a Bernie Sanders rally. He is a pro-EU, open-borders transnationalist who welcomes new immigrants and suggests that acts of Islamist terrorism may be the price France must pay for a multiethnic and multicultural society. Macron was for a year economic minister to President Francois Hollande who has presided over a 10
percent unemployment rate and a growth rate that is among the most anemic in the entire European Union. He is offering corporate tax cuts and a reduction in the size of a government that consumes 56 percent of GDP, and presents himself as the “president of patriots to face the threat of nationalists.” His campaign is as much “us vs. them” as Le Pen’s. And elite enthusiasm for Macron seems less rooted in any anticipation of future greatness than in the desperate hope he can save the French establishment from the dreaded prospect of Marine. But if Macron is the present, who owns the future? Across Europe, as in France, center-left and center-right parties that have been on the scene since World War II appear to be emptying out like dying churches. The enthusiasm and energy seem to be in the new parties of left and right, of secessionism and nationalism. The problem for those who believe the populist movements of Europe have passed their apogee, with losses in Holland, Austria and, soon, France, that the fever has broken, is that the causes of the discontent that spawned these parties are growing stronger. What are those causes? A growing desire by peoples everywhere to reclaim their national sovereignty and identity, and remain who they are. And the threats to ethnic and national identity are not receding, but growing.
World Wide Web: www.dailycorinthian.com To Sound Off: E-mail: email: news@dailycorinthian.com Circulation 287-6111 Classified Adv. 287-6147
The tide of refugees from the Middle East and Africa has not abated. Weekly, we read of hundreds drowning in sunken boats that tried to reach Europe. Thousands make it. But the assimilation of Third World peoples in Europe is not proceeding. It seems to have halted. Second-generation Muslims who have lived all their lives in Europe are turning up among the suicide bombers and terrorists. Fifteen years ago, al-Qaida seemed confined to Afghanistan. Now it is all over the Middle East, as is ISIS, and calls for Islamists in Europe to murder Europeans inundate social media. As the numbers of nativeborn Europeans begin to fall, with their anemic fertility rates, will the aging Europeans become more magnanimous toward destitute newcomers who do not speak the national language or assimilate into the national culture, but consume its benefits? If a referendum were held across Europe today, asking whether the mass migrations from the former colonies of Africa and the Middle East have on balance made Europe a happier and better place to live in in recent decades, what would that secret ballot reveal? Does Macron really represent the future of France, or is he perhaps one of the last men of yesterday? Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, out in May, “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
How to reach us -- extensions:
Newsroom.....................317 Circulation....................301 news@dailycorinthian.com advertising@dailycorinthian. Advertising...................339 Classifieds....................302 com Classad@dailycorinthian.com Bookkeeping.................333
Editorials represent the voice of the Daily Corinthian. Editorial columns, letters to the editor and other articles that appear on this page represent the opinions of the writers and the Daily Corinthian may or may not agree.