Are on the way. Pretty soon there will be a nip in the air. The changing seasons are a blessing in a way. Most wouldn’t have it any other way. We should cheerfully accept what we cannot change BUT do something about that which we can change.

Read on…

During the week of August 2-9, a savvy local resident vacationed in the heartland of America on a driving tour through Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and West Virginia. Using an automobile which requires premium fuel, the first gallons of gasoline in East Greenbush cost $1.729 and each subsequent fill out-of-state was less expensive with a low price of $1.349 in Elkhart, Indiana. The highways were crowed with commercial and tourist travelers, as were the motels.

Politicians in the Midwest eased the state tax burden on motorists in recognition of the financial hardship placed upon its resident population. As a visitor soon discovered, this was a nice area to visit and a pleasant experience at the gas pumps. It is possible that the more stimulated tourism and increased tax revenues in other areas such as lodgings, admission to events, food, etc., made up for the lost tax at the gas pumps.

New York legislators, if they were caring, could have done the same thing. The lost tax revenues could have been moderated by abolishing the annual budget items which make questionable sense. Philanthropic legislator gifts (your tax dollars not their personal wealth) to support almost anything must cease ASAP. All that is needed is an outcry of rage from the electorate, statewide.

Politics make strange bedfellows. The national labor union which represents public school education in the United States has embraced the candidacy of Al Gore for President. This early endorsement occurred prior to the selection of Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate to be Vice President.

At the convention in Chicago during July, the NEA (National Education Association) was opposed to all types of educational reforms and it also increased members’ annual dues by $5.00 for a war chest to fight voucher initiatives. Teachers, always with the children’s interest at heart, have been most successful in thwarting educational reforms, and accepting additional financial support in the form of tax money to continue singing the same "ole tune".

The paradox for Al Gore is the positions that Senator Lieberman has held in the past on private social security accounts, support for educational vouchers, free trade, and morality. The senator, as a good team player, has moderated some of his previous positions. On vouchers, according to Time magazine, August 21, 2000, he says they offer, "Hope to a whole new group of low-income kids." The voucher door continues to open ever so slightly, as accountability becomes a recognized standard by which to judge public school education.

The reason many pupils succeed usually can be traced to some adult who came through with the proper encouragement and instilled a sense of purpose beyond the routine everyday drag of classroom work. Most students believe the classes are dull and the text books the dullest.

In the old days, the McGuffey Readers stressed honesty and good basic character as absolutes. American real history had a sense of pride and excitement about it. Heroes were heroes without compromise. There was no shilly-shallying or double standards. There was an expression "a man’s word is his bond". Now days a bond means borrowing huge amounts of money for questionable reasons by questionable people.

In our schools of the past, reference to accurate textbooks was an elementary thing to verify facts already established in class. The teacher did the teaching, not the textbook. Today, the textbook not only instructs but also tells the pupil what to think, say, and do. The government control of our education system did not originate from the consent of the governed but from a self-serving click of socialist minded politicians who have been watering down our solid family values and dumbing down our children’s learning quotient to fit their left wing mold.

It is noted that young minds are in a formative stage with limited reasoning power. This is a sensitive period wherein they can be manipulated for good or for evil. This is why it is important to prevent them from being diverted toward the immoral, anti-religious, anti-patriotic dogmas of our failing system. More playgrounds, swimming pools, and large salary increases are not the answer.

P.S. Not only are they not the answer, they provide a cover for what is really a rotting, infected, losing proposition – Modern Education!

The most demands seem to be for more hand gun laws. The same liberals who rail against the death penalty and tough laws to apprehend criminals from dealing in illegal drugs rarely mention the criminals who prey on school children. Twelve states have no checks on all employees. Eight have no checks on teachers, including New York State. It’s easy to understand how Hoosick Falls can hire 3 faculty members (one a principal) on the quiet. We’ve seen bus drivers of dubious character and some of those far over the normal age limit driving busloads of children. Even taxi companies won’t hire people 78 or 79 years old. Here’s one for you: Our public schools check other workers, janitors etc. but not teachers. The unionists object. Isn’t it about time our public wakes up to the point where they determine there are a lot of things wrong with the school system besides low test scores and ultra high taxes? We note that locally the School Board is hiring remedial teachers along with a "home and career skills" teacher. What in heavens name is that? It used to be that mom and dad and other family members had a say as to young people’s future. It was no one else’s business.

It used to be a term referred to when speaking of a delicious salad with lettuce, endive, tomatoes etc. Now, the meaning has been distorted to cover a range of political activities borrowed from European movements. Regardless of color, their goals are concentrated on more taxes, more government, more social programs, National health care, and socialistic control of children’s education. The present liberals have made some inroads in this direction to the detriment of people and the best interests of our Nation and its future. It is a trend which must be reversed in order to comply with our U.S. Constitution and the original intent of our founding fathers. Foreign isms are not Americanism. Their principal spokesman, Ralph Nader, who has the personality of Saddam Hussein on one of his better days preaches responsibility and attempts to concern himself with consumers. Yet he attracts a certain group of left-wingers that even liberal Democrats avoid. It is this sharing of the earnings of others and a multitude of social programs that do not actually follow their own advocacies but are found to be heavily invested in the stock market and private business that show them as hypocrites. While we are at it, we can think of Ted Kennedy, Algore, Dick Gephardt, Hillary and Billary and many others who fit that category. They are all the proud owners of mansions worth over a million dollars. Few or none have done a hard day’s work in their life. Whose pain are they feeling? What do the greens hope for the future of the country? Perhaps something on the order of present day Russia? A recent visitor on returning makes the observation, "a Russian is a scrubby looking bearded bicyclist who smells bad". Off hand another reference to "greens" that comes to mind has to do with golf courses. This mention of course, brings down the wrath of the environmentalists and worrywarts concerned about misuse of land and the demise of the snail darters and butterflies. They actually believe that government schemers and socialists know better how to arrange –our lives and spend our earnings better than we do. Unfortunately, the government already owns over one third of all our lands.

#1 A recent survey shows the average vocabulary of a high school graduate 10 years ago was 25,000 words. It now stands at 10,000 words.

#2 The DARE program continues but so does the misuse of illegal drugs, DWI’s and criminal violence.

#3 They have a name for administrators who let teachers move on quietly after serious accusations. It’s called "passing the trash". Hofstra University Professor Carol Shakeshaft surveyed 225 school superintendents who had teachers accused of sexual abuse. 100 teachers quietly resigned, retired, or were not rehired. The researchers found 19 continued teaching. Is this 19 too many?

#4 The NYS highway department in 4 years of trying has still not convinced a large portion of East Greenbush people that 9 & 20 should be widened and the speed limit increased to 55 mph. Maybe they should concentrate their efforts on Delaware Ave. in Delmar.

#5 The Rensselaer Beacon, August 15 by Jack Urso, says a school board report discloses a fuel leak at the bus garage in E. Greenbush contaminated about 1/8^th of an acre. That’s a lot of approximately 55’ x 100’. Guess what? Environmentalists want $230,000 to clean this up and it’ll take 5 years. Is something wrong here?

RCTA sent letters to all school districts in the county that all votes on school bonds be held when convenient to the senior population. It was suggested that late summer in conjunction with the September teacher conference day, or late spring during regents examination week be chosen. These dates would be excellent.

Three responses were received. The names of the districts are considered confidential. Positive action is on-going in one district. One used the state mandate that the third Tuesday in May of each year when budget votes must take place. Finally the last Superintendent of Schools wrote that he sent the request to the Board president.

Note, the letters were sent to the school superintendent and board president. Passing the buck is a common ploy used by educators.

There are two NEA’s in case no one noticed. There is the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Education Association. Neither is up to any good. Both are controlled and operated by liberals who have a self-centered attitude that clashes with the thoughts and desires of most normal law abiding conservative minded citizens. The arts rely on handouts from the entertainment industry and the Hollywood left. They support liberal politicians who in turn con the public into supporting the type of art most people actually object to as obscene, even revolting to view. The education union, by the same token, works hand in hand with liberal politicians for financial support. As a matter of fact, the start of this union can be attributed to Pres. Jimmy Carter right after his election. The harried public paid and paid into public education with meager to poor results ever since. This leaves us down the scale of the number of qualified, skilled high school graduates who can fill the hi-tech jobs that our burgeoning new industries require. We now have to look over seas to other industrialized countries for the right, qualified people to fill necessary jobs. There is no question we have more than we need of social workers, "artists?", mediocre teachers and sports enthusiasts. There is also no question we have more than we need of pornography and anti-religious trash palmed off as "art". The general public can make a great deal of difference if and when they fully realize what is happening and how we can get back on track and oppose those who flaunt our Nation and our culture. The UN has no legal or moral justification to formulate our foreign policy and commit our armed forces, our financial resources and the sum and substance of our people to overseas ventures of little or no consequence to us as a sovereign nation. This present administration and its cohorts are leading us down the path to an Armageddon we should avoid at all costs. It is wrong and they are wrong.

Congratulations are extended to voters in the East Greenbush Central School District who rejected the "swimming pool". Your wisdom was not to save tax dollars, but that learning how to swim is not an educational object to be addressed by public schools. Also, your wisdom indicates you will not accept sports as a cover for failing academics.

The selling point offered by Board of Education, to act quickly in order to get greater state aid made little sense. In reality, after the fact, the state let it be known that it would not provide the savings in support on non education programs. It’s too bad the voters approved the bus garage.

The word "free" has to be defined. There is nothing "free" about public education that costs the taxpayers billions of dollars, particularly with declining results.

Schodack Resident

The liberals have kept very quiet about the actual conditions via crime and the economy in South Africa most recently.

East Greenbush Resident

Why, 10 years after the fall of the Soviet Union does Russia still have nuclear missiles pointed at us? Why has Bill Clinton squandered eight years of his presidency and not disarmed Russia? Why, after all the aid we have given Russia they have built in 1995 a new nuclear submarine to use against us?

Schodack Resident

RCTA
PO Box 145
East Greenbush, NY 12061

The taxpayer group is your voice to alert the public on matters involving the use of your money by public servants.
New members are needed to support our goals, which are excellence, accountability, and cooperation.

Why are the liberals so vehement about disarming the American public? They say it will make our country safer. Well, that is a lie for in every city that has outlawed private gun ownership, the crime rates are skyrocketing and the same is true around the world.

South Bethlehem Resident