YOUR VIEWS
Shame that the death penalty isn’t used for such brutal killers
Dear Editor,Â
Themis, the goddess of justice and law as personified by a female clothed in white, blindfolded and holding scales, must be weeping upon hearing the news that the confessed killer of Ms. Franca Barsi will probably get a miserably short 32 years in prison for his dastardly crime.
This monster, David Vincent Reyes, as the Morgan Hill Times reported, brutally murdered the victim after tying her arms and legs behind her back and then suffocated her to death. Reyes has a history of violence toward women, armed robbery and is an unregistered sex offender, and now leaves Ms. Barsi’s son motherless.
How unfair for Ms. Barsi’s son and her family, and how pathetic that criminals like this are not given the death penalty. A charge of voluntary manslaughter is the result of a plea bargain and so we taxpayers will have the “privilege” to keep another monster alive in prison so that he can study law, lift weights, get fed three meals a day and receive free medical treatment.
A very wise king wrote some 2,000 years ago “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.” Reyes deserves a rope around his neck and a quick drop to justice so that he will never murder again. Too bad our society has turned so politically correct to make murderers like Reyes an example that crime really does not pay..
James Fennell, Gilroy
Congress should fix No Child Left Behind Legislation
Dear Editor,
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a federal law, which was passed in 2002. It is currently up for reauthorization in Congress. Teachers and their unions are among those asking that the law be improved, and that problems within it be addressed, before it is renewed.
One of the concerns: that the law places too much emphasis on standardized, multiple-choice testing, so that districts and teachers are pressured to abandon meaningful instruction in order to practice for the tests. (Some primary teachers in our own district report that at least one third of all reading instruction time is now spent on testing.) Teachers call this drill-and-kill, because of the effect it has on children’s enthusiasm for learning.
Another complaint is that NCLB is neither accurate nor fair in its measurement of school performance. Schools with student populations, which are unprepared and low-performing to begin with, for example, often are considered failing even when they make tremendous gains during a school year, because they are still behind where we’d like them to be.
Also, schools with large populations of English-language learners are rated as under-performing because their students do not perform well on tests given in English. (New arrivals are expected to test in English after one year.) Schools with high populations of special education students, sometimes concentrated within a district to localize services, are similarly punished.
And now there is a proposal to rate teachers’ effectiveness based upon their students’ scores. This may sound good, but the message it sends teachers is to resist any class assignments that include large numbers of struggling students.
There are proven methods to improve learning in struggling schools, but NCLB does not utilize them, and does not send along all the promised funding for the programs it does put in place.
The unintended consequences of the current law are that successful teachers are encouraged to abandon struggling schools, and those who stay are pressured to set aside their best lessons on a range of subjects in favor of test preparation drills. And children are harmed, because we as a society are denying them access to the outstanding education they could and should be receiving.
For all these reasons, teachers are asking members of Congress to fix NCLB before it is renewed.
Jeanie Wallace, Morgan Hill
Sobrato High School social studies teacher
Really enjoying the paper’s new look and local content – thanks
Dear Editor,
I have been a subscriber to the Gilroy Dispatch for approximately four years. I wanted to congratulate your staff on the recent changes to our local paper.
Despite winning numerous awards for journalism excellence, the Gilroy Dispatch team does not rest on their laurels. They continue to look at ways to improve the readability of the paper and keep it community-friendly. Striving to evolve and adapt to the ever-changing world of news reporting, especially in this age of technology, is a challenge.
As a former columnist, I miss being part of the weekly features, one that is complemented with local citizens and syndicated writers – a little something for everyone.
I like the strong focus on local news, but there is nice balance with national and world news, too. The face-lift to the front page is wonderful. The layout, use of color and increased use of photos all make for an inviting newspaper – something that has become part of my morning routine.
Keep up the good work!
David cox, Gilroy
