Letters to the Editor (Aug. 16)

Parents play vital role

Sunday’s Opinion piece, “A school district Wichita’s children deserve” is a commendable characterization of an ideal public schools initiative. That said, I believe a most important variable that must be considered to assure learners’ success is missing: parental involvement and support.

During my decades-long career of preparing classroom teachers for certification and providing instruction for in-service educators enrolled in graduate studies, I have become convinced about the incomparable power of teacher-parent collaboration for greater academic achievement and social growth of all students at every level. I ask educators to identify the one thing they most desire to guarantee student success: active, candid, energetic, continuing collaboration with parents.

Parents should step up, be involved, let your child’s teacher know of your availability. Communicate a positive attitude about education and point out how your career is dependent upon what is learned in school. Attend school functions and never miss a parent-teacher conference.

Classroom teachers have a similar responsibility, to communicate a desire for this collaboration by inviting parental involvement, and taking the initiative to connect with the home.

The better GOP option

We can only hope and pray the provisional and mail-in ballots give the Republican gubernatorial nomination to Gov. Jeff Colyer. We’ve had a part-time (at best) secretary of state in Kris Kobach for the last seven years. He has wasted who knows how much money and man hours chasing the occasionally mistakenly registered voter and wasting even more time backing up phantom voter fraud numbers for a delusional president.

We sure don’t need a governor who will continue to be President Trump’s lap dog rather than pay attention to what Kansans need. We also don’t need Brownback part deux from a guy who has made it clear he’d take us back to the days of broke, reduced services, deferred road maintenance and lousy credit ratings.

Colyer, conservative himself, is at least a reasonable, no tin foil-hat wearing, feet firmly on the ground Kansan who can be counted on to pay attention to Kansas, not kissing the kneecaps of the president. We better pray Colyer is the nominee so in November we’ll have a choice of candidates with experience and qualities for the job, not experience in sucking up and conspiracy theories.

Separating God, government

I agree with the letter in Sunday’s Eagle, “The Power of Trump,” and would add more. For me, having President Trump in office is almost unthinkable, but impeaching him might be jumping from the frying pan, into the fire.

Vice President Mike Pence would become president, and if you believe in separation of church and state, and civil rights, Pence is not the person for the office. He is politically savvy, and a dedicated “right winger.” Trump is an opportunistic, narcissistic, loose cannon who is also at times self-defeating and perhaps not as dangerous to our democracy. Sadly, we are in a Catch-22 situation.

If you believe in blurring the line between church (religion) and state, and as I have heard it said, “putting God back into government,” you need to study the historical examples of their combination and the resulting abuses. One reason the pilgrims came west was to avoid imposed religion. Our forefathers didn’t mention God in the Constitution, and didn’t allow the promotion of any religion. God was left out of the pledge of allegiance until the 1950s.

Please consider the long-term implications of mixing religion and government. It has proved to be a divisive practice.