Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 16, 1994 TAG: 9403170023
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In condemning the VEA's support for, and the General Assembly's passage of, a Professional Standards Board, you conveniently overlooked the following:
Teachers are the only professionals who have no meaningful say in standards governing the accreditation of preparation institutions of higher learning, their certification, recertification and decertification.
The current Advisory Board on Teacher Education and Learning isn't controlled by teachers (nine K-12 members out of 19). ABTEL has routinely had its major professional recommendations ignored by the State Board of Education. These recommendations include: Mentors during probation for those entering public education from alternative routes such as the military, and recertification points for teachers for critical courses in such important areas as discipline and special education without unnecessary enrollment in a master's degree program.
The new Professional Standards Board, if appropriately signed by our governor, will have only seven K-12 teachers, not a majority or control as your editorial suggested.
Your denunciation of the reduction-in-force bill is misguided and misinformed. Protecting positions of experienced and senior teachers over probationary teachers is a major way, for example, of keeping a 10-year high-school math teacher over a first-year math teacher whose major educational credential is that he's a football coach. It's also a way of making sure that reductions in force aren't used to easily circumvent the continuing contract (tenure) laws of the commonwealth, and of assuring that reductions in force aren't used as a convenient subterfuge for getting rid of assertive and outspoken professionals who might disagree with their principal, superintendent or school board.
The VEA and its members hope this effort at remediation will bring you up to grade level on these issues.
DR. GARY WALDO Executive Director, Virginia Education Association District 5 ROANOKE
Wal-Mart can help undo the mess
REGARDING the OK for rezoning for Wal-Mart in north Roanoke:
It's obvious Roanoke Planning Commission members have never been to Valley View Mall at a holiday time, or any other. There's only one exit road from the mall, and traffic backs up for hours, at Christmas for instance. I can't imagine who could have planned such a bottleneck. What would happen if there was a catastrophe at the mall? Another exit, as the proposed interchange from Wal-Mart to Interstate 581, would be a blessing!
The March 4 news article by staff writers Lon Wagner and Dwayne Yancey, ``Planners' advisory not law,'' states: ``Traffic on the Hershberger Road area sure is a mess.'' It's a mess because of this one exit from the mall. Surely, it's obvious that another exit is important.
Roanoke City Council needs to consider the importance of Wal-Mart and an interchange on I-581.
JULIA S. BALLENTINE ROANOK
Jobs, yes, but legitimate jobs
I REALIZE there may be a critical need for jobs in the Hampton Roads area (Feb. 17 news story by staff writer Bonnie V. Winston, ``Gambling battle isn't finished''). Isn't there all over the state? But I believe the men ``examining every option'' (Del. Jerrauld Jones, D-Norfolk) can surely find a source other than waterways gambling. Even their selling tactics are old and unimaginative - ``20 percent of the state's share of the gambling proceeds would have gone to disadvantaged school districts.''
While this tactic may have helped to sell the lottery, Virginians, it is hoped, are awake to the true results. Lottery funds supposedly for education have been routed to wipe out deficits, where there were budget surpluses before the lottery, and a greater bureaucracy was created to siphon more tax dollars (officers, staff, new office buildings, etc.)
Gambling, in whatever form it takes, is stealing. The lottery and proposed waterways gambling just make it legal. I applaud those who helped defeat this bill, and I urge lawmakers to seek legitimate and honest ways to bring jobs to Hampton Roads. Gambling's not the answer.
GLENNA RICHARDSON SALEM
John Hancock left exemplary record
WHAT PLEASANT recall for us newcomers to the Roanoke Valley in the thought that we Nordts had the great pleasure of meeting John W. Hancock Jr. not long after our new factory opened adjacent to Roanoke Regional Airport. It was through the good offices of Carter L. Burgess, who came with Hancock to tour our newly opened facility after our migration from northern New Jersey in 1984.
We were saddened, of course, by the news of Hancock's death, but grateful that we'd had the opportunity to get to know him, inasmuch as we had parallel industrial experiences, but in differing fields of metal-working. Roanoke Electric Steel, through his unique enterprise, showed how a relatively small operation could compete successfully with ``big steel.''
What an exemplary record he leaves of productive citizenship over his 89 years! ``May his tribe increase!''
PAUL W. NORDT JR. Chairman of the Board John C. Nordt Co., Inc. ROANOKE
by CNB