Monday’s Letters to the Editor

Disparities in education

EDITOR: Linda Darling-Hammond, the president of the California Board of Education, is quoted as saying, “We cannot ration well-taught thoughtful mathematics to only a few people. We have to make it widely available. In that sense, I don’t disagree that it is a social justice issue” (“An intractable problem,” Nov. 5).

Racial and socioeconomic disparities affect all curricular areas. We cannot be myopic and think we are going to close the achievement gap by adopting yet another instructional approach or new textbook series. Education from birth to college and beyond is a social justice issue.

Our “intractable problem” is partly the result of how we have traditionally tried to deal with it. We need to put thoughtful programs in place before preschool to help ensure that the inequities children face begin to be addressed early on. And we don’t stop when children enter kindergarten. Disparities and achievement gaps don’t lessen with a new way of teaching anything.

Are we going to be part of the problem by continuing to ignore the disparities that children walk through our school doors with each day, each year, or are we going to be part of the solution that addresses that?

CIE CARY

Sebastopol

Time to go electric

EDITOR: The front-page article about gas prices should be a wake-up call that it’s time for a change in thinking about buying that new gas-guzzling SUV or pickup for nonessential purposes (“Gas prices near record,” Nov. 4). Despite having received federal subsidies for well over a century, fossil fuels are not remotely competitive with solar or wind, which continue to get cheaper as technology improves and they scale up production.

For daily local trips it’s sure nice to plug in at home instead of waiting in gas lines to complain about prices and lost time. With expanding high-speed charging networks it’s a relief to take a 20 minute break after 200-plus miles on the highway to “fuel up” and continue your trip relaxed and alert.

Soon there will be a wider choice of options for those who need larger vehicles like trucks and vans, and already there are a lot of electric SUVs to choose from, including seven-seat options. It’d be prudent to wait to make a major purchase for a new vehicle that will enslave you to the gas pump for another five to 10 years.

JONATHAN McCLELLAND

Santa Rosa

‘Silent Spring II’

EDITOR: We can reflect on Rachael Carson’s “Silent Spring,” which cited DDT decimating bird populations. The toxins of Silent Spring II are opioids, particularly fentanyl, which shuts off the brain’s ability to signal breathing.

Like a grim reaper marching through our community, fentanyl is far more threatening than COVID. This toxin is hovering over our youth, taking them to early graves. These youth are the promise of our community’s future.

America has the worst health care of any developed nation in the world. The drug house discovered on Cooper Street in Santa Rosa, a trunk full of opioids captured on Highway 101 near Windsor — these are a plague swarming our county.

What is the strategic answer? It is not just an exchange of facts. The conversation must shift from health providers’ empire building. Health care costs Americans $16,000 for each individual in this country, the highest in the world.

Massive parking structures and medical office building expansions will not raise our vulnerable, the promise of our future, from their graves. Shift health care providers to housing, where real safety and healing work. Before it is too late.

WARREN HEDGPETH

Santa Rosa

Conservatism in America

EDITOR: With the rise of their false messiah, a hideous plague, more existentially lethal than COVID, appears to have descended upon a major swath of conservative America. It seems to have invaded the bodies of their electorate, laid waste to any powers of simple reason and rendered them (perhaps self-interestedly) incapable of detecting even the most glaring of lies. Mesmerized by each self-serving word escaping their dear leader’s mouth, they pledge blind obedience. Calling them sheep would be an insult to actual sheep.

Conservative local and state officials look to have escaped the mental diminishment of their electorate, but the scourge has eaten away any personal integrity, any respect for democratic principles, exposing their lone craven goal: power.

As for red-state governors and members of Congress, this epidemic has laid bare the same naked lust for power while simultaneously attacking and dissolving their collective spines. A mere sideward glance from their wannabe dictator sends them, quaking and groveling, to kiss his ring and beg forgiveness.

No longer concerned with the best interests of their constituents, their actions reek of petty political self-preservation. In pursuit of reelection, no lie, no political flip-flop, no trampling of democracy nor self-abasement is out of bounds.

R.W. CAMMOCK

Sebastopol

Keep solar viable

EDITOR: Aaron Masseira’s Nov. 7 Close to Home column was spot on (“CPUC proposal threatens solar in the state”). The changes proposed by PG&E and other giant utility companies would make it harder and more expensive for homeowners and nonprofits, etc. to install rooftop solar in California.

PG&E and others are taking a narrow view that would boost their profits to please their board members — profits over practical decisions in fighting global warming.

If you think climate change is the world’s most pressing problem, robustly support rooftop solar in California, U.S. solar and wind farms and state solar incentives for homeowners and renters/landlords.

BILL KRUMBEIN

Santa Rosa

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.