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Show Sun Advocate 4A Tuesday, September 14, 1999 Staff editorial Who is driving Utahs educational vehicle By JACKIE ANDERSON Staff reporter As charter schools make their debut in Utah, with one of the schools opening its doors right here in Carbon County, the question of why remains unsatisfied. What purpose do charter schools serve? A charter school that teaches sign language to the deaf and to the children of the deaf makes sense .So does a school specializing in the performing arts, or specializing in at risk students. It is easy to conceptualize a need for a vocational high school in Carbon County. elementary school that functions like a private school while being funded by public money not only does not make sense, it is out and out offensive. Touted as a vehicle to promote public school choice" by Larry Horyna from the State Office of Education, charter schools supposedly offer options to An :he regular public schools, but options for whom? One- - hundred and sixty students will have the op-i- to attend classrooms limited to 20 students; while 2, 391 Carbon County elementary students will not, although the parents, grandparents, etc. of those 2,391 Carbon County studeots have federal taxes withheld from each pay check, and those federal taxes provide the start up funds for the Pinnacle Canyon Academy. A lottery for enrollment supposedly makes the charter school equally available to the public by random selection, with every interested person in the state given the same opportunity to apply. High quality education should not be a luck of the draw. Class size directly impacts quality of education. While Carbon district classrooms continue to be at risk for overcrowding, publicly funded Pinnacle Canyon Academy places students on waiting lists and maintains class sizes of 20 students. If one is willing to accept the exclusion implicit with the random drawing , the lottery is still available only to those who are informed of the issue. Though charter organizers fulfilled the legal requirement to advertize the lottery for charter enrollment, I would lay odds that a large percentage of the Carbon County population missed that particular issue of the Sun Advocate and never heard of a charter school until long after the lottery drawing. Organizers of the school, their friends and families, were, on the other hand, very well informed of the opportunities afforded by the charter. So why shouldn't informed, involved parents be rewarded for their efforts? They are, after all, the ones making the school happen. Because charter schools are supposed to be public schools, and public schools offer equal education to everyone. Charter schools are not equal. They get to limit class size. Charter schools are not available to everyone. They get to limit class size! Parents who were aware of the lottery, but do not have the means to transport their children to and from school, were also eliminated from the choice of the optional school. Pinnacle Canyon Academy is a prime example of the rich getting richer and. the poor getting poorer. Advantaged children from homes with parents who are involved in their education are further advantaged with smaller class sizes, federal start up funds to purchase technology and an environment cultivated by involved parents and removed from the social ills that handicap real public schools. The tax dollars of Carbon County residents are fund- ing the Pinnacle Canyon Academy, yet the voice of Continued on page 5A Bad weeks turn me toward my youth This has not been particularly a great week. The mood is just right and therefore I am hereby officially resignation as an adult. endering my I have decided would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year old again. (My wife might want to argue about whether or not this is where I was already at, but that will be another column.) I want to go to McDonalds and think that its a 4 star restaurant. want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and I I make ripples with rocks. I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them. I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summers day. want to squirm around on the ground while my dog tries to lick my face. I want to go round and round on the turn around thing at the park until am so dizzy that cant stand up I I I straight. want to follow another bee to its hive way out in the country just to see if bees really do live in hives. (Ill forgo the pain that came from hundreds of bee I stings when tried to expose the honey comb.) I want to feel in control of the whole world while riding my horse Thunder under a wonderful deep blue color and castles of white clouds all around. want to feel as important as I did when had to I I I was doing my part of providing go fishing because for the family. I want to return to a time when life was innocent I When all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didnt bother you, because you didnt know what you didnt know and most importantly, you didnt care. All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset. want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is I possible. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again. Letters want to live simple again. my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, gossip and how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the For your information the first bill was introduced in 1957 by Sen. Hubert Humphrey and Rep. John Saylor. This original bill was rewritten 66 times and brought with it in those days good and bad comments about locking up the land of this great country in a no change use status. The Colorado Republican representative Wayne Aspinall called it "a crazy idea. Yet, the final bill passed the Senate 2 and the in its 73-1- House of Representatives 373-- 1. , Today there are 635 wilderness areas totaling 104 million acres preserved as wilderness. There are six states, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland and Rhode Island that do not contain designated wilderness areas. What find interesting is that only 4 percent of the nations wilderness lies east of the MisI sissippi River. Utah waited until 1979 for its first wilderness area in the Lone Peak. Another 10 U.S. Forest Service arHigh Uintas, were added eas, including the 456,705-acr- e in 1984. Right now, 796,418 acres or about 1.5 percent of Utah is designated as wilderness with another two to ten million acres proposed to be wilderness, de pending on who you talk to. Defining wilderness has always been the problem since the creation of the act. One side states that a wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visiior who does not remain. So what is man going to all man to do in wilderness tracks? This has been the question and is still the question today as millions of more acres are being considered worthy of wilderness designation. One of the main questions revolves around what constitutes a road. County commissions and vehicle enthusiasts define a road much differently than environmentalists. Developments such as roads, dams or other permanent structures are prohibited in wilderness areas. Timber cutting and the operation of motorized vehicles or equipment, including wheelchairs and bicycles, are not allowed. Mining operations and livestock grazing can continue only if they existed prior to an areas designation. Hunting and fishing can be enjoyed in areas other than national parks. And the and-hi- editor I I Deer rifles are not deer rifles... dont want bank. want to believe the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow. So... heres my checkbook and my car keys, my credit card bills and my 401K statements am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this further, you'll have to catch me I in I first, cause... , ; TAG! YOURE IT! Editor: In yesterdays Sun Adyocate was a classified advertisement offering two deer rifles for sale. This is the silliest thing Ive ever heard! How can deer use rifles? Why, they dont even have fingers, so how could they pi11 the triggers? I saw a bumper sticker once that said something about the right to keep and arm bears, but deer with rifles makes no sense at all. Franklin Allen Latimer Wilderness Act turns 35 Friday marked the 35th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson signing the Wilderness Act. to the list of disagreements gets longer and longer. The process of designating wilderness is difficult at best and most recently very contentious. For these reasons a coalition of groups and people who are interested not only in wilderness, but in the concept of muti use celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Wilderness Act by calling for its reform. The Wilderness Act is antiquated, inflexible, antiresource management and flies in the face of sound and responsible public policy principles," says Clark Collins of the Blue Ribbon Coalition in a recent release. There can be no doubt that it would never pass any modern Congress in its present form. On the other hand, In his 1961 book The Sound of Mountain Water, Wallace Stegner said this about wilderness: We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its qdge and look in. For it can be a means of measuring ourselves and our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope. Like wilderness or not, the concept and problems of preserving large tracts of land in their natural will be around for quite some time. state Boys scouts receive ruling Editor: For the years the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has been fighting off attacks from homosexuals and gay rights groups seeking to inflict their perverse lifestyle on the organization. Until now, the U.S. Supreme Court and several lower courts have largely sided with the Scouts, agreeing that it has a right to determine its own moral policies and decide who may (or may not) become affiliated with it. On Aug 4th, however, the New Jersey Supreme Court, citinga state antidiscrimination law, ruled that the BSA may not ban homosexuals from its ranks. The decision resulted from a suit filed by former assistant Scoutmaster James Dale, who was dropped from his volunteer post after leaders had discovered that he was not only volunteeringtime to work with young Scouts, but was also a gay rights activist at nearby Rutgers University. Dale stated that whether they know it or not, the Boy Scouts do wonderful things for gay kids. Commentingon the courts decision, he said that the Boy Scouts taught me a long time. ago the difference between right and wrong. Nine year ago, (when) I was kicked out of the program, I knew it was wTong. But an attorney for tie BSA voiced the view of many parents, past and present: Its a sad day when the state dictates to parents what role models they must provide for their children. Dale claims that he did not know that he was gay when he entered scouting, on his way to earning the converted rank of Eagle. Perhaps,-ha-d the Scouts been more tolerant then, a gay Scoutmaster could have helped him discover his sexual identity. Should the New Jersey decision be allowed to stand and establish a precedent, the door will be open for pedophiles and other perverts to become Scout volunteers. Hopefully, if and when the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, a solid majority of Justices will side with the morally straight standards that have guided the Boy Scouts of America since its foundingin 1910. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchmans hand. Ezekiel 33:6 James Franklin Rinehart . (HlfignE) gnsnie Sr!ae Sun Advocate Voice of Carbon County since 1892 Subscription Rates: 50 cents per copy, $37 per year in Carbon and Emery counties, $40 In Utah and $54 outside of Utah per year by mail. ADMINISTRATION Kevin Ashby Publisher Classifieds Deadline: Monday at 10 a.m. forTuesday's publication and Wednesday at 10 a.m. for Thursday's ADVERTISING Sue Mosher Lynnette Lessar Shirley Stubbs Loretta Trejo Christa Kaminski Lynda Barnett Publication No. (USPS 1 issued twice a week at Price, Utah. Periodical postage paid at Price, Utah, and at additional mailing office PO Box 589, Castle Dale, Utah 84513. 74-96- EDITORIAL Lynnda Johnson Jeremiah Stettler Jackie Anderson Editor Reporter Reporter Reporter " Gail Raby Postmaster: Send change of address PO Box 870, Price, Utah 84501. to OFFICE Linda Thayn Darla Lee Office Manager Circulation Receptionist Lynda Barnett Hours: Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 845 East Main, Price, Utah. Telephone: (435) (435) 637-271- 637-073- Fax Entire contents copyright 1 998 Sun Advocate Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced in any form with out the expressed consent of the managing editor or publisher. Internet:e;ma!l: : editorsuhad.com, adssunad.com web - http:www.sunad.com |