Schools, teachers must focus on basics
The Hamilton County Department of Education fiddles while students burn scholastically. I am so tired of procrastination; pouring millions of dollars more into failing middle and high schools is too late.
Pour the money into pre-K and lower the teacher/student ratio. Maintain discipline, require students to complete all work at school (many homes might not be conducive to homework), serve nutritious breakfasts and lunches.
These students can learn! I know. I taught in South Carolina under same circumstances.
Margie Merritt, Ringgold, Ga.
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We can rethink our debate on monuments
The Charlottesville extremists tried to hijack the discussion over Civil War monuments to promote their agenda. Do not allow them to win.
We must take away the debate from extremists, both those deluded souls who would return us to a time of discrimination and those who would have us erase all public evidence of the past.
How? We have successful patterns to follow.
First, repurpose symbols. The Christians took the cross, originally an instrument of horrid torturous death and embraced it as a symbol of hope.
Second, honor and reconcile divergent stories. Civil War veterans established the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park as a place to bring reconciliation to former foes. In Dayton, Tenn., a statue to Clarence Darrow is being erected along with that of his Scopes Trial antagonist, William Jennings Bryan.
Should we repurpose our Civil War monuments? Can they remind us that some, perhaps with good intentions, can be tragically wrong? Can we learn from the mistakes of our forbearers as well as from their contributions? Should we erect new monuments to honor and reconcile divergent stories?
Instead of taking monuments down, should we be putting monuments up?
Leslie Conway Coomer, Athens, Tenn.
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Where are the ‘atta boys’ for president?
Day after day, issue after issue, the left castigates President Trump. Has the president done anything, anything, that merits an atta boy?
The liberal press continually points out that the president’s poll numbers are going down; is it any wonder when readers are given only its version of the news of his presidency?
Somehow this type of bashing reminds me of a quote attributed to Vladimir Lenin, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
Dale Yoder
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We can’t respond fast enough to ads
To Erlanger and Memorial hospital executives:
Years ago when I first visited your facilities, as a medical equipment sales rep, Memorial was one red brick building run by the nuns, and Erlanger was a sort of industrial-type building across the tracks from the baseball field.
Today you two medical giants, each grown to 10 (or 50?) times your earlier size, seem engaged in a health war with an insatiable need for more and more patients.
Well, I want you to know that I try to avoid all things “healthy” but regret that I’ve been unable to come up with a heart attack. Surely there are thousands of other elderly Chattanoogans eager to qualify for your superior care, as advertised.
Please try to be patient (goodness, a pun) with us; encouraged by your full-page ads, we’re doing our best to get our old hearts to fail.
Bill Laudeman, Red Bank