Feral cats
Feral cats
Feed these felines on your own property
I have a nifty idea: I have read the pros and cons of cat colonies in our beach parks. How about these folks set up these colonies on their own property?
Up here in North Kohala, there are some folks who continue to feed these cats that live on acreage, lots of land, why not set up these on their own property? Nobody could object to that. Why is OK to turn our tax-supported beach parks into litter boxes for hundreds of sick, injured feral cats — and not their own property?
I love cats, I have four of them; that is not the point. Just a thought: Put them on your own property, problem solved.
Cindy Tinker
Kapaau
School testing
The downside
There is another side to the bright picture school administrators frame for the public regarding the state’s standardized testing program and policies.
Teachers and students are literally being held hostage by the people who grade and evaluate these high-stakes exams.
These people of greater knowledge on the subject of how to educate our children usually have little or no experience in the classroom.
What they do well is sell programs and packages of standardized testing to the local and state authorities to help them with what they perceive to be underachieving schools.
The state Board of Education subscribes to this because it is an easy fix and shows the public how concerned it is with advancing the standards of our schools, also because if it doesn’t, it will lose precious funding from the federal government.
This is what No Child Left Behind is all about. The federal government has tied funding of our school system to standardized testing that opens the door for private companies like Pearson Education Inc. and McGraw Hill Co., etc., to hold good teachers and the future of innocent students hostage, while they profit from a system that would seem to have been specifically tailored to raise their stock dividends.
Experienced and trusted instructors are leaving the educational system in droves because they refuse to adhere to this system of teaching for the sake of conforming to these biased and self-serving corporations.
Parents are losing the right to guide their children’s education.
Oscar Harnik
Ka‘u
Election
Vote was cast
Mahalo a nui loa to WHT for contacting me with regard to my inability to vote on Saturday.
It is important for issues as odd and complex as this to be brought to the attention of those that might make a difference. Although the extended hours Gov. Abercrombie added wouldn’t have made a difference in my situation, I was pleased to hear about his intervention and hope that the frustrated voters who weren’t able to vote as planned made the effort to return to their polling places to vote.
After speaking to a WHT reporter, I was able to make another (successful) attempt at voting, myself. It was an awful feeling to think my vote wouldn’t be cast, so, with an adjustment to my hectic day, I stopped and voted.
Since the reporter I spoke with had done such an excellent and accurate job of expressing my concerns and frustrations, I felt this update was in order.
Tricia Kailiwai
Kailua-Kona