Saratoga News

Letters & Opinions

Speak Out

Schools 'produce
misinformed graduates'

Thank you for publishing my letter ("District should protect students from teachers," letters, April 10) summarizing facts regarding indoctrination in our local high schools that were brought to light during meetings of the ad hoc study group. But, even more so, thank you for publishing the response by Mr. Lorton ("No need to worry about dangers facing students," letters, April 17).

I could not have hoped that we would hear from a more convincing example of the unfortunate consequences of allowing teachers to use their classrooms to indoctrinate their students. Because multiple studies have shown that the great majority of the staff in the government-run education system subscribes to a "leftist" ideology, the indoctrination that takes place in classrooms can predictably produce misinformed graduates such as Mr. Lorton. Heaven help our country if this indoctrination is allowed to continue.

Wesley I. Ferguson

Chateau Drive

Churches are unfairly
categorized by district

I have no beef with the district raising funds for classroom rentals ("Saratoga school district will raise fees so it can pay its utility costs," April 17). My confusion lies in the different categories defined by the district and who they put in each "bucket."

The school district describes the nonprofit category of fees (which are lower) for those groups that include civic or service-minded organizations, and yet they exclude churches from this?

First of all, all churches I know are nonprofits, and all churches I know are first and foremost civic and service-minded. Yet, churches are put in the profit-making category. Absurd. In addition, most private schools are also nonprofits, yet they too are stuck in the for-profit bin and charged the higher fees. These categories seem to be manufactured at someone's whim (with an agenda, perhaps?) as they can no way be explained in any logical way.

Let's hope that other decisions of the school district aren't made in such a random and, perhaps, biased fashion.

Stephanie Palmer

Harleigh Drive

Stick to the basics
in sports, parenting

I enjoy most of the things you write. It's not that I don't enjoy the other things you write, I just don't read the paper every Tuesday. Anyway, your TV thoughts this morning ("Televisions come with on-off switches for a reason," by Dick Sparrer, April 24) made me want to write and say, "Keep the common sense encouragement coming!" It is like coaching--work on the basics and the fundamentals, and your chance of success is improved.

Jerry Hitchman

Los Gatos

Jerry Hitchman was the head football coach at Lynbrook High School for many years. He is now the sports chaplain at Valley Christian High School, where he continues to coach junior varsity football.