Battle Creek Enquirer from Battle Creek, Michigan • Page 5

OPINION Monday. July 21, 1997 Battle Creek Enquirer 5 At Charter schools at crest of wave WHERE TO WRITE Readers' View: 155 W. Van 8uren Battle Creek, Ml 49017 a Fax (616) 964-0299 Great Lakes Free-Net: Send to 'Readers' View not Enquirer conference area. XX E-mdb UttercmustfKmoirrhort daytime phone. They should be no more than 250 words and may be edited.

No author wii appear more than once a month. Anonymous submissions wiB not be published. Election-related letters must be received no later than noon Thursday for publication next Sunday. sure was applied on baseball by one U.S. senator to abstain from smokeless tobacco in the All Star game.

My source said it was a tradeoff the All Star game for the whole season. It sounded like a page from the new fascism. "Contemporary Christians tend to avoid complexity as being hazardous to their faith," says Peter J. Gomes, preacher to Harvard University. In April 1996, all three major U.S.

weekly newsmagazines featured debates among scholars about Jesus and the New Testament evidence, some debunking the gospels. Gomes was asked if these sensational stories would do damage to the faith. "Hardly," he said. "Time's discovery of Christianity's debate suggests only how far Time is removed from the intellectual life of biblical scholarship. As the sign on the antique shop says: 'Nothing new here" (from Gomes' The Good Book).

I propose a moratorium on reports about the alleged murder of JonBenet Ramsey. The only report that told us anything is that of the death. The TV clips ad nauseam show the family leaving St John's Cathedral in Denver on Easter Sunday. Wait until an arrest is made. The author went to a town-hall planning meeting on the city's long-range plan at Burnham Brook Center.

If I hadn't had my nap, I would have wanted to fall asleep a terrible feeling. Long informational monologues, reading what was on the page, maps that became no clearer after READERS' VIEW TOURNAMENT COVERAGE LACKING Here it is July 13, with three days of reporting the Mayor's Tournament, or should we call it the Connie Mack? The sports reporter must have forgotten that Sandy Loufax teams played, too. The weather turned out great I wish I could say the same for the coverage. Yes, the scores were listed in the back, but you needed perfect vision to read them. Not one young man or his team was given credit I know these boys checked the newspaper every day.

Nothing. I'm not just talking about our hometown boys. Those out-of-town boys were looking in our local newspaper, too. How disappointed they must be with the report How sad that the town they played in didn't care. I'm sure they spent their share while here.

K. Andrews Battle Creek THOUGHTS ON SELECTED SUBJECTS Have you had your nap today? This self-proclaimed expert in more than 40 years of working life and now in retirement habitually takes an hour's nap before supper. Twice refreshed, the evening hours are as wide-awake as the daytime for work, meetings and recreation. The answer came in as to what pres Public education has been, historically for Americans, the greatest of all' social levelers, a social benefit of such enormous value that it is impossible to NORMAN L0CKMAN explanation. How about an upbeat video with music? Most of us don't know or care about maps, graphs, diagrams and the one-plane dimension.

I came away without much new. Whatever is decided, well muddle through, as the British say. The word "allege" links us to the British system of criminal justice, with the exception that U.S. media are free to pursue their own trial by harrassment (Richard Jewell, for example). We can understand why so many calls by media are never answered or returned.

My first boss told me straightaway: "If the newspaper calls, you say I have no comment" Standard legal advice, I believe. Don M. Dixon Battle Creek think of what it means to be an American without thinking of the law that requires all to be educated at public expense to the age of 16. Public education plays such a central role in American life that what happens to it changes the XT" -H FINALLY, A 1 THE BATTLE CREEK ENQUIRER EataMMlwd 1900 EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Ellen Leifcld Publisher Nan Seelman Executive Editor Bill Church Managing Editor John Sherwood Opinion Page Editor Stephanie Boyd Newsroom Cynthia Spencer Human Resources Brent Stewart, Sid Adams and Mary E. Smith Community residents Enquirer's View represents a consensus of the editorial board, and is expressed on behalf of the newspaper as a local institution.

ENQUIRER'S VIEW Family help must always be accessible Effective Aug. 1, Family Children's Service of Calhoun and Barry counties and Family Children Services of the Kalamazoo Area will merge to form Family Children Services Inc. The change presents a big challenge for the new non-profit organization. And a major responsibility to the people of this region. The merger was a natural step that we welcome.

Now it will be up to the new organization to prove that it can sustain its services and build on an existing reputation for providing thorough social services for families, individuals and children, including foster care, adoption, respite services and home-based services. WE'LL BE ESPECIALLY pleased if this action can provide stability to the overall operation and real consistency in serving local families and children. Accessibility will remain the most vital service the organization offers. If the merger also allows the new agency to grow and create new services despite decreased costs, the step indeed will have proven to be worthwhile. We also hope the merger will set the stage for greater internal stability.

The Battle Creek-based organization has had four executive directors and two interim directors in the past 10 years. Families and children who are at risk need help to establish positive values, emotional harmony and individual health. The loss of the kind of services this organization provides would indeed have been harmful to the greater Battle Creek community. That's why we wekrome this consolidation effort and hope it ensures that social services to families at risk continue to be there when they're most needed. WHERE TO TURN: The new Family Children Services Inc.

will operate offices at 182 W. Van Buren SL, Battle Creek, 965-3247; 450 Meadow Run, Hastings, 616-948-4096; and 1608 Lake St, Kalamazoo, 616-344-0202. It also will continue to provide services at 10 satellite locations in Calhoun, Barry and Kalamazoo counties. Lake cleanup moves forward We were pleased to see steps taken last week to help clean up Homer Lake. Now it's up to the Homer community to make certain that a final resolution is fair and equitable.

The Calhoun County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution authorizing creation of a kike board with taxing authority to deal with excessive weed growth caused by village sewage and farm fertilizer runoff. The lake is on the Michigan Department of Natural Resources' list of endangered lakes, and the weed growth is one of the factors threatening the lake's survival. The new board will be composed of representatives of the county board, the Homer Lake Association, Village of Homer, Clarendon and Homer townships and the Michigan IX'partment of Environmental Quality, as well as Don Eishen, Calhoun County drain commissioner. If the need to establish a tax exists, it will be vital for the lake board's members to keep in mind an important point Any tax-assessment district it creates should include only those area residents owning land directly affecting the lake, either by proximity or as a source of runoff. Otherwise, they'll be sure to hear from residents who believe they are being taxed unduly, either at board meetings or at the ballot box.

We also urge area residents to understand the importance of preserving the lake from contamination, and the need to pay a fair share of the costs involved. This is how a community preserves its resources. And its future. CALL US! Should grades in B.C. schools be realigned? frrwri.

twdwn mi rn'mkhUntm I lotth Crook NATO must call Bosnian killers' bluff and catch them if goals are to be met Strategy and tactics are different matters. Strategy means the big picture, the scribblings on the maps, the big curving arrows that point at the big target circles. Tactics are the messy operational details carried out by mistake- JOHN mmnucvi vnuuiuni prone humans of lower rank. Strategy is what a football coach does. Tactics are what offensive tackles do on the way Americans think and behave.

Brown vs. Board of Education outlawed the fiction of "separate but equal" pubu lie education facilities. It was the earli-, est death knell for legal segregation." 1 One way or another, public education has been under siege many times, but! it is under siege this time around for mediocrity. That's new. For years, most people would fight to get access to public edu-? cation.

Now many are fighting to get. out of it Public education, as an institution, is so pervasive that Americans take it fori granted. If a pillar of the nation, so it il must be OK. In many places it is OK, although -that is damning it with faint praise, but generally public education has suffered from professional atrophy. While we were not paying attention several awful things happened to public! education: It became a reflection of society.

It, was intended to be the guiding beacon of society. It became a jobs center, dominated1 by labor unions and administrative bii-. reaucracies more intent on job security', and pay grades than quality. It became a warehouse for kids, t5; many of whom are given no plausible' reason for being in school other than the law requires it It became a test tube for social tin-1, kerers who were more interested in so cial equity than education. It became a money pit a place where tax dollars are often to uses not intended by political cadres more interested in controlling assets' than educating children.

This poisonous combination resulted in many of the ills we now lament, "social promotions" that have produced undereducated high school graduates- more than a few of whom are functiqn--ally illiterate, undereducated teachers' who, like bad assembly line workers, hide behind protective unions, low standards, top-heavy non-teaching bureau-'1 cracies. There is resistance to reforms de-. signed to make the system more ac--countable and more productive. Public schools should exist solely to benefit children. Instead, children have become merely the raw materials needed to support a system that now exists to support an adult economy, complete with self-serving political strategies.

The reforms now being proposed go; to the heart of the problem, but are far too tentative. In Delaware, all students will have to start passing a standard- m' ized test to be eligible to graduate inn 2002 -but there are many escape routes. There is talk of improving the quality of the teacher corps by institute ing peer reviews sometime in the in-4 definite future. What public education really needs- are some tough, powerful principals who know how to beat down the bu- reaucracy. It is exactly this need that has been recognized by the proponents of charter schools.

There a principal, backed by a smaltj board, holds enough power to ignore the stumbling blocks to quality educa5 tion common in traditional public school systems. They can hire and fire at will, they; can dictate behavior codes and dress codes, they can set promotion and 2 graduation standards. The new and rapidly proliferating charter schools, which are funded witj tax dollars earmarked for public eduqg tion, are the result of yearning for thes style of old-fashioned public schools; a that were autonomous, child focused and results oriented. 5J If the big clumsy public school sys- terns can't reform themselves predict that charter schools will be- come the American public schools of -Z the future. Norman Lockman writes regularly fafi Gannett News Service.

a field. And the devil is in 1 XS I the details. President Clinton -who "loathed the mili from the front line in the Prijedor operation. Does this mean that in future operations, the Brits will do the fighting and the Americans will do the flying? The Northern Ireland mess has given John Bull's ground-pounders lots of experience in dealing with urban terrorists that U.S. troopers don't have.

The reasoning for choosing SAS troops wasn't spelled out Despite the burst of activity, the big fish Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and military boss Ratko Mladic remain at large. If that bloodthirsty pair isn't taken into custody, there could be no greater admission of defeat by NATO. The Bosnian Serbs are threatening defiance and worse if the roundup of war criminals continues. The Croatian leadership is reacting with indifference. Last Wednesday, a U.S.

soldier was stabbed with a sickle in Serbian territory, which may be a portent of a long, hot summer. Leaflets containing death threats against the 30,000 member NATO-led force also have been found. Worried about the safety of NATO troops, Clinton warned Bosnian Serbs "it would be a grave mistake" to seek revenge for arrests of suspects. If NATO is to survive Bosnia with its raison d'etre intact it must call the killers' bluffs and go in after them. Any other result would be shameful, and could destroy NATO just as it tries to advance into a brave new world of European cooperation.

To walk away from Bosnia before the killers are caught would be an unspeakable result John Omicinski writes regularly for Gannett News Service. has been anything but NATO leaders know it. It became clear at the Madrid NATO summit that while NATO's expansion was good strategy on the big map, better tactics were needed if NATO was going to accomplish anything in Bosnia before it leaves next year. (Congress has told Clinton it will cut off the Bosnia money in July 1998.) If Bosnia turns out to be a poor performance, it will be a bad way for NATO to start its post-Cold War career after all the hoopla at the NATO summit in Madrid. Clinton has been taking no chances with the 8,000 Americans on duty in Bosnia.

U.S. personnel played only a backup role on July 10 when a crack 30-man platoon from the British Special Army Squadron moved in to capture two Bosnian Serbs indicted as war criminals. Simo Drljaca, former Serb police chief of Prijedor, died in a hail of British bullets when he pulled a gun, shot and wounded one of the SAS troopers as the squad moved in to collar him. Drljaca set up detention camps in the Prijedor area including the infamous Omarska camp where Bosnian Muslims and Croats were systematically tortured and killed in operations euphemistically called "ethnic cleansing." Another suspect Milan Kovacevic, town hospital director, surrendered without a struggle. Above the fray, U.S.

Blackhawk helicopters hovered in a safe backup role. Their services were unneeded. "Operation Tango" was over in 15 minutes. It marked the first time NATO troops had sought out accused war criminals. Indeed, it probably was the very first time in its 50-year history that NATO has fired a shot in anger on the ground.

Gts 1995 blasts were fired from attack jets at Bosnian Serb positions.) It may have been strategically significant and perhaps a signal of things to come that U.S. troops were kept back tary" as a callow youth got a crash course in the difference between strategy and tactics in Somalia in 195)3. There, 18 U.S. troops lost their lives and 78 were wounded on his watch in an operation strategized to feed starving people. Clinton has put Somalia's lessons into effect in Bosnia, with mixed results.

No U.S. troops have been lost to combat in the Balkans. At the same time, the U.S.-led NATO force has made precious little headway in implementing the Dayton Peace Accords. NATO has waited far too long to go after the Balkan war criminals. Almost two years after the peace plan was signed, dozens of accused war criminals walk with impunity among the people whose relatives they killed.

Tens of thousands of refugees still haven't returned to their homes because they happen to have the wrong ethnic heritage. Fraudulent elections run by one or another powerful ethnic group are common, and the international police force hasn't begun to be trained. Dayton's map-table strategy was terrific, but the tactics have been weak and uncertain, as if run by Charles Dickens' Mr. Micawber, who was always waiting for something to "turn up." NATO's "robust" force to use a favorite Washington term PUc Sdmb fan mm i ra inWbbtwMtscrtw6Mt smm mi cUnm ty fjrwps tfcot JOHNOMKINSKI Gannett News Service 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arfegton, VA 22229-0001 tmUtt mjn (Rtdlvc faf boniH, Doonesbury By Garry Trudeau rati HsdiNb far iradist-l rihtriwxtoiHffkJioW Cifff WX M3 Mff Kyi Sdm!) mi tm ubdpmn 10-1 mm stria wmU fan to risk mm dwb ft wghHfc.

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