Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410170021
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Why is there so much parking for commuters - I've yet to see a commuter lot full.
The people who seem to have it the best, although not very good, are the faculty. I've even heard complaints out of them - not only for what's been done to the actual parking lots, but also for raising parking permits to $25.
Who was the genius to give out the parking stickers anyway? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you only give out as many parking stickers as there are parking spaces. Wouldn't that make sense? Instead we have an overflow of cars, and students are forced to park on the streets of Radford, taking space away from local citizens.
And why don't the police even know the rules? I was given wrong information about parking by two different officers on two occasions. Because of their wrong information I ended up receiving a parking ticket. Is that another gimmick to raise money?
Where do they plan to put this new Global College? Lets face it - we have no room for it. Aren't people already complaining about how crowded this school is?
All the things that are seriously wrong on this campus and they are concentrating on what seem to be unimportant things. All the drug and alcohol use in Radford and they're spending money on the things I've already mentioned. Why not put money into drug and alcohol control groups. The administration's main goal, supposedly, is to get RU so it's not thought of as a party school, but they aren't lifting a finger to change anything. I recently read an article in The Tartan that Radford University wasn't listed in the top 100 best buys in college education. Why doesn't that surprise me? That would seem to be a good goal for us to shoot for - why not go for it?
When I first came to RU, I took a lot of pride in this school and was proud to say I was a Highlander. We need to change our priorities quite a bit before this school is considered one of the best in the state.
I know a lot of the administration, faculty, students, citizens and friends may disagree with what I've expressed, but how are things going to change if we don't bring these problems up and try to solve them.
Jimmy Bowe
Radford
North focuses on wrong things
The Roanoke Times & World-News of Oct. 3 tells us exactly what Ollie North stands for. He is either seen at a gun shoot or telling the uneducated a lie which they do not know any better than to believe. He never mentions education. I don't believe that word is in his vocabulary. It made me sick to my stomach to read the type of people at this pigeon shoot. A grandmother who would take her 3-year-old grandson with a toy shotgun to ask him to tell Ollie North what they shoot at and he says "Day pigeons and Democrats." That is a sick woman. We need not ask the question why the poor teachers are having such terrible problems. It is not the student. It is a parent and grandparents like this one who are the problem.
I wonder how many of these North followers even know how to vote or will vote. I think the polls had better show not how many points he has but take a poll of how many can really vote. He had better get busy, educating which he does not know how to do, instead of always holding a gun.
Opal A. Price
Blacksburg
Jails, prisons not root of problem
Using more time in jails and prisons to solve the growing problem in America is like trying to kill a tree by putting bad apples in the cooler until they rot.
Why not get right to the roots of the problem. Jail the real enemy who's been hiding behind freedom of speech and using television, etc. to sow bad seeds of thought that sprout this violence and crime. People are what they think. If they think bad they'll be bad. If they think good - they'll be good. Whatever their mind feeds on most that's what they will do. It's like sowing and reaping. It's that way in all nature, even in human nature.
Public officials on up the ladder to Washington, D.C., should focus on the roots of the problem and protect our country, like parents protecting their children from bad influence. To change the course of action of any people in any country, simply change what is being fed into their minds.
Paul Sutphin
Pearisburg
Business as usual in the schools
Your paper carried an article on the educational system of Montgomery County, touting Goals 2000, and Focus 2006. These titles are bureaucratese for the same old Virginia Education Association-Montgomery County Education Association-dominated business as usual. The goals start out, "Montgomery County Public Schools will be adequately funded," and this is what they have been (more than) for at least 18 years. Same story, money equates to the quality of the educational system!
If that were the case, why are Montgomery County students taking remedial courses to be prepared for college work? Aren't high schools supposed to do that? Didn't we in Montgomery County pay the cost as budgeted by the experts of the system, largely MCEA members, for a "quality education?"
"Lots of students come to us who need remediation because they have not had the right courses in high school," said one recent article. Don't we employ counselors? Where are they?
We know of each year's public budget hearing where MCEA members and the PTSA mob the supervisors weeping for passage of the usual bloated "bare bones" budget. And they get it! If money were the problem it would already have been solved!
The educrats now believe in inclusion! While one gang rallies to this banner, another rallies to the 20:1 pupils-to-teacher panacea. One impacts the other, and there is no coordination of these two plans.
Inclusion is a no brainer when students in significant numbers aren't ready for post-secondary work. The "average" students, forgotten in the rush to handle gifted and challenged students, are not prepared for college. More teachers only handles the inclusion problems, which disrupt a learning pace for average students. Fast students get bored stiff.
Will elected boards improve our chances of progress? Likely not, and for two reasons: The MCEA will fund expensive campaigns for their supporters and will lobby generously and long to get tax power for the school boards.
What will improve the educational system? Vouchers and school choice, performance pay and accountability for failures! Discipline and real academic challenge of students.
Bob Anderson
Blacksburg
by CNB