TERRE HAUTE —
Inconsistency in positions
Columnist Andrea Neal cannot seem to make up her mind.
Around or about April 2011, her column appeared in your newspaper titled, “School Vouchers Could Trigger Law of Unintended Consequences.” In this column she advocates discontinuing the Department of Education in Indiana’s accountability testing programs for many schools.
On June 21 of 2012, in her column “New Questions Surround Common Core,” she advocates the retention of Indiana’s testing program over the federal standards formulated by the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers that are being called “Common Core.” She cites Indiana’s current testing program as being superior to Common Core. She uses examples of Alaska, of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, of the State of Michigan and of the Coalition of Central Indiana Tea Parties to support her position.
She criticizes Gov. Mitch Daniels and State Superintendent of Schools Tony Bennett for supporting and for adopting Common Core. She advocates that Indiana become the fifth state to reject Common Core while 45 of 50 states have now accepted it.
Since Ms. Neal professes no background in the methodologies of comparative testing one must question her expertise in making such a judgment. Comparing her past and present columns with no references to each other or no apologetics whatsoever invoke the conclusion that her position is more political than educational. We have too many politicians dictating what education is and how it should be done now.
Clearly Ms. Neal’s assumed position in the article in question is not credible. However, as a flip-flopper she seems unsurpassed in the field of professional columnists. Therefore, in my opinion, every argument that she presents and every column that she writes should be disregarded by the reasonable reader as worthless rhetoric that contributes nothing to a sound, educated conclusion and “adjunct scholar” is a term in her alleged qualifications that is used very loosely.
— John Garner
Terre Haute
Track coverage missed real news
Thanks to a very well run race card at the Terre Haute Action Track last Tuesday night, I was able to get home and watch the sports coverage on 10 and 2. If that’s all you saw, you would have thought Tony Stewart ran away with the show.
Both stations highlighted the appearances of Stewart and Kenny Wallace. Neither station mentioned Justin Allgaier. All he did was win the evening UMP Modified race with Stewart in a close second place. Stewart’s Sprint car appearance was a pleasant surprise, and Tony finished in seventh place. None of the area racers were mentioned on either telecast. Both Fitzpatricks suffered a tough outing.
Thanks to the TribStar, all of the details were published along with recognizing Justin Allgaier for his appearance. Watching him accept the trophy and praising the Action Track was really worth the time spent hanging around that evening.
Too bad the news stations missed that. The TribStar got it all right. Print rocks!
— Terry Keaton
Terre Haute
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