Letters to the editor

Study raises questions about online charters

On Jan. 27, 2016, the Walton Family Foundation, a huge donor ($385 million) to charter schools, issued a fascinating paper, written by Marc Sternburg and Marc Holley, employees of the foundation. Search for "Walton Family Foundation We Must Rethink Online Learning."

To its credit, the foundation continually tests the results of the programs it funds. A small amount, about $550,000, was invested in virtual charter schools. The results, they conclude, are sobering. "The CREDO study found that over the course of a school year, the students in virtual charters learned the equivalent of 180 fewer days in math and 72 fewer days in reading than their peers in traditional charter schools." Online charters "currently enroll 200,000 children in 200 schools."

On Feb. 26, 2016, the Democrat-Gazette published an article headlined "Fayetteville super proposes plan for Goshen land" in which Paul Hewitt proposed building a home for the district's new online charter school.

Question: Is this a for-profit school? Who owns it? Where does the curriculum come from?

Another: Does the Democrat-Gazette Education Section not subscribe to "Education Week," which originally published the Walton Family Foundation's study?

Keith Payne

Bentonville

Congress' fiddles while babies are threatened

We live in Arkansas and we're angry. How can Congress possibly hold back the $1.9 billion proposed funding for Zika?

It's full court press time on a public health issue that will almost certainly impact us, our children and our grandchildren. Meanwhile, our Republican-controlled, anti-science, anti-anything-Obama-proposes Congress fiddles while American babies will be eventually be born with microcephaly.

Republicans pride themselves on being pro-life, but seem tone-deaf to the terrible, terrible, position their delays will put more young couples in as they are forced to make life decisions with incomplete information. Get the full funding done now.

We, as a society, will financially pay even more, estimates up to $10 million per child in a lifetime, when we see the defects Congress' delays caused in additional babies. Members of Congress will pay in future elections, as children and families will suffer a lifetime.

Cathy and Larry Meyer

Fayetteville

In Rogers, it's all about development

Rogers is supposed to be a Tree City, the second-oldest Tree City in the state, I am told. However, nothing is being done to save our old trees.

Just a little over two weeks ago, seven trees were bulldozed down on the north corner of Dixieland and Walnut Street, where the CVS Pharmacy is going in. One of the trees was the oldest American Holly tree in Rogers. Another tree that was very old was a Magnolia tree right behind the Holly tree. My grandfather planted them there back in the 1920's or 1930's. That grove of trees was the last thing left of Dixieland Farms.

Those trees would not have been bulldozed down if they had been in Fayetteville. Fayetteville has an arborist who goes out to job sites and makes sure any trees that are especially beautiful or have historic significance are saved. Rogers does not have an arborist nor do they want one. That might keep some developers away. As if we don't have enough development in Rogers now. Why did we need another pharmacy on that corner with three others less than a block away?

No one from City Planning and Development even went out to the job site to see what was being bulldozed down. I find that appalling. Surely at least some of those trees could have been spared. There would still have been plenty of room for parking.

I realize CVS Pharmacy will have to replace at least some of the greenery, but how do you replace 100-year-old trees? You can't.

Does nothing take precedence over development in Rogers? Evidently not. All we may have left some day are Bradford Pears and asphalt. How very sad for a Tree City.

Jane Whitlow

Rogers

Commentary on 05/20/2016

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