Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 17, 1993 TAG: 9302170329
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BOOS, BOUQUETS THINKING ABOUT TOMORROW
PILING UP megadebts isn't the only way today's adults are influencing the world their children and their children's children will inherit. In a multitude of smaller ways, too, decisions today affect life tomorrow. Three examples:A boo to the Education Committee of the Virginia House of Delegates . . .
. . . for killing Fincastle Sen. Bo Trumbo's bill to allow local school districts to start classes before Labor Day. The restriction can cause trouble particularly for districts in Western Virginia, which usually gets more school-closings in wintry weather, because it's harder to make provision for snow days.
The real grotesquery, however, is the probable reason for the existing restriction: to ensure that private tourist attractions in Eastern Virginia have cheap labor through the profitable Labor Day weekend. The state ought to be encouraging local school systems to have more rather than fewer schooldays, so Virginia's young people will have more rather than fewer opportunities to develop the necessary skills to compete for good jobs.
A bouquet to the Roanoke city and Roanoke County school boards . . .
. . . for working on a plan, pushed by Roanoke city School Board member Nelson Harris, to merge the vo-tech programs of the separate divisions. Even if the result is nothing more than a cross-enrollment agreement, it could mean that vo-tech students would have a better chance at getting the courses they need or want at a time or place more accessible to them.
The Roanoke Valley punishes itself daily with its insistence on balkanized local government. The valley's young people deserve an occasional break from having it inflicted on them in every grisly detail.
A bouquet to President Clinton . . .
. . . for including in his economic-stimulus package $300 million this year to promote immunization efforts against childhood diseases in underserved areas. This is a classic example of spending relative pennies now to save health-care dollars later.
Only half of America's 2-year-olds are immunized, a rate lower than in any other Western Hemisphere country except Haiti and Bolivia. America is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not guarantee childhood vaccinations for all. This is disgraceful.
Add another bloom or two to the Clinton bouquet for his readiness to tell it like it is about the American pharmaceutical industry. Industry spokesmen warn that the immunization proposal could hurt profits. But prices on drugs sold in the United States are considerably higher, often many times higher, than on the same products sold elsewhere. And the industry spends more on advertising and marketing than on research and development.