Editorials from around Pennsylvania

Editorials from around Pennsylvania:

SHOULD THE FRANK RIZZO STATUE STAY OR GO? THAT’S THE WRONG QUESTION TO ASK.

Aug. 23

One of the more powerful and primal images is that of a toppling statue. The fallen statues of Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin, and even King George III have served as potent signals of regime change.

That’s why we’re not all that surprised that the last few weeks have been dominated by images of at least one toppled statue and arguments over the removal of others. It’s not just that values have changed since the statues in question were installed - Confederate statues representing the racially repressive South, for example - but the fact that we are living in a time when political hierarchies, expectations, and this country’s view of itself are being pushed from their pedestals. Whatever you think of President Trump’s performance as a leader, you can’t disagree that he has toppled the status quo, as he promised to do.

The controversy over the statue of Robert E. Lee that white supremacists sought to protect in Charlottesville, Va., this month traveled north very quickly, when Councilwoman Helen Gym called for the removal of the Frank Rizzo statue outside the Municipal Services Building.

Gym’s call quickly divided the city into two camps: those who revered Rizzo, and those who reviled his bullying, often racist ways. So who’s right? Who gets to decide? Should the Rizzo statue remain?

In our view, that’s the wrong question to ask.

This isn’t about Rizzo, or even the Rizzo statue. Not really. The debate is about the complicated nature of the simple bronze renderings of now-dead people - and the ideas they stood for. A better set of questions might be: Who’s a hero? Who gets to decide? What do we do with statues when they outlive their times by decades, if not centuries?

Architect Scott Aker, who teaches at Penn and is designing the Salvation Army June 5 Memorial Park, says monuments wait for our understanding. He believes part of the job of such monuments is to bring forth discussions and make people think about what they’re looking at. A monument not talked about, he says, is one that’s no longer valid.

The fate of the Rizzo statue should be aired in depth and in public. And soon.

Contextual information, which most statues lack, can help in such debates. Fortunately, the Association for Public Art’s website offers audio stories of many of the city’s statues, including Rizzo’s. These offer a fuller, rounder picture of the city’s statues and the people they represent. For example, Rizzo’s segment points to the charges of racism and also features remembrances by his son, Frank Jr.

Despite the complicated nature of our memorials, we have to accept the limitations inherent in a statue. It can’t convey the complexity of a person - or a legacy. And legacies themselves change.

Zeno Frudaki, the sculptor who created the Rizzo statue, once said he sculpts as a way of revolting against death and time.

The best thing we can do is to acknowledge that we, too, can revolt against death and time, but in the end, no one is ever going to win that battle - no matter how loudly we yell, or how many tiki torches are lit.

-The Philadelphia Daily News

-Online: https://bit.ly/2vYnpJf

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CELLPHONE LOCATION TRACKING: GET A WARRANT!

Aug. 18

The U.S. Supreme Court has an opportunity, indeed, an obligation, to reinforce citizens’ Fourth Amendment right to privacy this fall in a case concerning the government’s use of cellphone-tracking technology.

At issue is an appeal by Timothy Carpenter, convicted in a string of store robberies based on “cell site location information” obtained by authorities from his wireless carrier. More than a dozen tech companies, including Verizon, Microsoft and Google, have filed a 44-page amicus brief, urging the justices to rule that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure requires police to obtain warrants before demanding cellphone-location data. This commonsense expectation already is upheld in two similar cases.

In one, the high court ruled that GPS tracking counts as a search under the Fourth Amendment. In the other, the justices determined that authorities cannot browse suspects’ cellphones without getting warrants.

Government lawyers have argued that the business records in question belong to the companies, not the consumers. But it is, nevertheless, the customers’ privacy that’s at stake.

Never mind the chilling effect that such warrantless snooping would have on news reporters in tracking their whereabouts and with whom they meet.

The digital age did not usher in an unconstitutional police state. And, once again, our admonition in these cases bears repeating: Get a warrant!

-The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

-Online: https://bit.ly/2voOoud

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SCHOOL DISTRICTS, STUDENTS HELP DEFINE FUTURE OF SOCIETY

Aug. 23

In years past, Labor Day signaled that the start of school was right around the corner.

Now, however, all school districts in Cambria and Somerset counties, with the exception of Westmont Hilltop, will begin classes a week or more before Labor Day. Westmont will begin classes on Sept. 5. The thinking is that districts will be able to bank school days in anticipation of inclement weather during the winter.

The Pennsylvania School Boards Association notes that 84 percent of school districts open their doors before Labor Day.

Students, parents, teachers and administrators have been busily preparing for the first day of classes. Back-to-school shopping sprees for clothes, shoes, classroom items, backpacks and more have been completed.

School bus drivers have finished their required training and are familiarizing themselves with their routes.

Nutritionists are introducing healthy lunch options for students in kindergarten through Grade 12.

At Central Cambria High School, Ebensburg, students will be able to select online from 10 entrees every day with ingredients and nutrient levels available for students and parents to review.

Professional chefs from food service companies are available to help cafeteria staff introduce new, healthier menu items in their schools.

And Gov. Tom Wolf delivered some good news to students and administrators this past week. On Aug. 14, the governor announced that the time students must spend taking the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams has been reduced from eight hours to 61/2 hours.

Wolf said the move is intended to provide teachers more time to “focus on the complete education” of students “rather than prepare them for one exam.”

The move was hailed by education officials.

“Many believe the amount of time spent on testing is excessive and unnecessary,” Mark DiRocco, executive director of the Pennsylvania association of school administrators, told CNHI state reporter John Finnerty.

In many ways, schools are abandoning what was once thought to be tried-and-true curricula and have positioned themselves for the modern era.

More focus has been placed on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) courses for college-bound students. And intense hands-on learning for those who will enter the trades after graduation is being emphasized.

More students are enrolling in vocational-technical trades, foregoing the demands and expenses of higher education for immediate opportunities as the need for skilled workers is on the rise.

“Vocational education is just hot right now,” Ken Jubas, executive director of Admiral Peary Vocational-Technical School in Ebensburg, told reporter Jocelyn Brumbaugh.

At graduation, Jubas said, students are “qualified entirely to gain an entry-level job in their field.”

For the 2017-18 school year, Jubas said 530 students have committed to Admiral Peary.

Those students come from Bishop Carroll Catholic, Blacklick Valley, Cambria Heights, Central Cambria, Conemaugh Valley, Northern Cambria, Penn Cambria and Portage Area high schools.

The same holds true at the Greater Johnstown Career and Technology Center in Richland Township, where enrollment has risen to 368 students from Conemaugh Township Area, Ferndale Area, Forest Hills, Greater Johnstown, Richland, Westmont Hilltop and Windber Area high schools.

“This is a 15 percent increase in our high school enrollment,” John Augustine, administrative director, said.

“The recession of 2008 is behind us,” Augustine said, “and people with a skilled-trades education are in demand.”

Schools are working to prepare students for the real world, for both social and economic well-being. It’s now up to the students to take advantage of what is being offered in the classrooms and apply it to their lives.

-The Johnstown Tribune Democrat

-Online: https://bit.ly/2wENspX

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NO SCHOOL SHOULD MEAN NO SPORTS

Aug. 23

Public schools and the high school football season are about to open. Guess which one will go on regardless of whether teachers and at least three of the region’s school districts achieve contracts.

Teachers in the Abington Heights, Scranton and Dallas Area districts might strike at the beginning of the school year absent new contracts, but that wouldn’t dim the Friday or Saturday night lights.

State law allows school strikes. But those are mostly theater because other state law requires 180 days of school. So, teachers strike without risking pay or benefits; school board members are free to posture for political points.

In effect, there is no real pressure for a settlement. And state lawmakers foolishly do not use high school sports, which are a major connection point between schools and their communities, to create that pressure to settle.

Barring sports and other school-related activities during strikes would create substantial community pressure on both sides to achieve contracts before the scheduled start of school and the fall sports season.

Opponents of doing so most often say that it “would hurt the kids,” apparently believing that a strike that disrupts education doesn’t “hurt the kids.”

But they have it backwards. Sports are important and a legitimate aspect of education, often so much so that they keep some kids in school. But school districts do not exist to support sports. Rather, sports are an element of education. There is no sound rationale for maintaining that single element as academics are suspended amid strikes.

Out in the private sector, labor negotiations are about leverage. Parties must weigh great risks when working toward a contract or toward a strike.

There is no such leverage or risk in school negotiations. The opening of school is a theoretical target for settled contracts; the opening of football season would be a date certain that school boards and unions would find hard to ignore because of the risk of community backlash.

The Legislature should mandate that no school means no school, including sports and other extracurricular activities.

-The Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice

-Online: https://bit.ly/2irtWaC

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AN ECLIPSE THAT BREAKS BOUNDARIES

Aug. 22

For a few hours on Monday, Aug. 21, divisions faded across the country as the sun dimmed, was blotted out in some areas, then returned.

Crowds of people gathered to watch the astronomical spectacle at schools, parks, churches and in Times Square. For once, there were no political affiliations, no races or ethnicities, just Americans looking up at the sky to watch a natural phenomenon that hadn’t been seen across the nation for nearly 100 years.

This is science we all believe in, that we can all see. The time, date and location had been pinpointed for decades, and the eclipse came just as it was supposed to, starting off the coast of Oregon at its appointed time, moving east across the country over the next four hours, ending off the coast of South Carolina.

Communities in the path of the totality saw people pour in to stare at the sky through solar glasses and filtered telescopes or watch as shadows in viewers made from cereal boxes showed a sun that went from a circle to a crescent to nothing.

For weeks, news outlets have been telling people what would happen so everyone would be prepared. By Monday, radio stations were warning listeners not to stare, while broadcasting such songs as “Moon Shadow,” ’’Black Hole Sun” and, of course, “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

As the eclipse began in York, children and adults alike were outside to see the event. Even though only 80 percent of the sun was covered by the moon here, people watched through their glasses and shadowboxes.

Those who had bought the new glasses that made it safe to stare at the sun made sure everyone who wanted a look had a chance to see the sliver of the sun behind the moon.

It was a quintessentially 2017 event, with NASA livestreaming as the shadow crossed the country, fans sharing playlists via Twitter, and photos all over social media of people in their glasses staring upward.

Of course, it was soon over. The sun returned, and with it the normal business of the day. Even before the moon had completely passed, there were memes out of the president looking directly at the sun without solar glasses, and there was a spike of people using Google to search “I can’t see” and “My eyes hurt.”

But the bonding experience had happened. For a few hours, we were all children gawking at a sight we rarely see, and we did it without fighting over the glasses or pushing to get to the front of the line. No one was questioning what they had seen, no one was doubting that, indeed, the moon blocked the sun for a short period of time.

Let’s remember the experience as we go back to debating climate change, health care, Russia and North Korea and Afghanistan.

And let’s make plans to do it again. On April 8, 2024, the shadow of the moon will again block the sun, hitting the United States in Texas and passing almost directly over York before pushing northeast through Maine and New Brunswick, Canada. Save the date.

-The York Dispatch

-Online: https://bit.ly/2vfFxvB