Tighten Up Higher Ed First
It’s not too hard to go to college these days; it’s too easy, says Sharon Traber of Nine Mile Falls.
“Instead of trying to build enough classrooms to ensure that any and all students, regardless of academic history or aptitude, can attend college,” she said, “let’s go back to the days when students proved worthy of extending their educational careers in college by establishing a track record of academic excellence in high school.
“Public education is guaranteed K through 12. College should be reserved for those who optimize those 13 years of schooling.”
Like Traber, Gerald Ray of Spokane responded to a “Bagpipes” question about requests for more funding for Washington’s universities.
“It’s been within the past year The Spokesman published figures on the abysmal graduation rate of Washington State and Eastern Washington universities. They were in the 40 and 50 percents after six years,” said Ray.
“I don’t think they need to think about expanding. I think they need to think about maybe cutting down on the beer drinkers they let in who are just there to party.”
While he was on the phone, Ray also had a reaction to House budgetwriters’ cap on funds with which to clean up nuclear defense waste at Hanford.
“I’m a fiscal conservative and I would like to see them have a goal in mind before they spend any more hundreds of millions of dollars. I follow it very closely. I’m on the mailing list of Hanford, and they haven’t really decided how they’re going to clean it up yet, and the actual expenditures are in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Government needs to pull its head out of the sand and figure it out.”
So who needs term limits?
Four major political races on next week’s general election ballot in Spokane County are for offices the incumbents are quitting before their terms have expired.
You’d think elected officials had learned about job commitment from some former Washington State University football coaches.
Now, still another local politician has resigned in midterm - Rep. Todd Mielke, a Republican from the 6th District - to become a lobbyist.
After all the recent talk about politicians who overstay their welcome, do readers have anything to say about the ones who don’t fulfill the terms they asked voters to give them?
, DataTimes MEMO: “Bagpipes” appears Tuesdays and Thursdays. To respond, call Cityline at 458-8800, category 9881, from a Touch-Tone phone; or send a fax to 459-5098 or e-mail to dougf@spokesman.com. You also can leave Doug Floyd a message at 459-5577, extension 5466.