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TROUBLE WITH TEACHER

One of the slogans in the MPUSD is “failure is not an option.”

Ayear ago, the school administrators became upset with the number of failing grades being given to high school students. There were several attempts to have teachers change grades, to no avail. Many failing grades were the result of students refusing to do homework. Many teachers, myself included, had a grading policy under which a failing grade was a grade below 60 percent.

This is the administration’s official policy to remedy the problem: No more than 10 percent of a student’s grade can be attributed to homework. Teachers must conform to the district mandated grade system. Students may receive a failing grade if they fail to achieve a 45 percent average. Teachers must use the district grading program which is online and transparent to the district.

The administrator will, no doubt, be citing with pride the marked improvement in grades over last year when the first quarter/semester grades come out. But why stop at 45 percent?If they lower the cutoff to 30 percent, there will be even fewer failures, and failure, while still an option, will be difficult.

Jim Fortune | Monterey

POETIC POLITICS

Everyone was asked – “What do you love about the public library? (“Pacific Grove Public Library needs the proposed parcel tax,” Oct. 21-27.) Why do you go? How do your hands know the library? How does your nose? Over 300 responses were received!

After sifting through the “I love books… ” I got to the gems, the nuggets of insight and perception, and I culled and wove and speared some words until I felt a community poem fall onto the page.

Why We Love the Public Library

Facing the library’s bright windows,

I obey impulse and step inside.

Did you know, you can pick any book you want?

The soft pages fill me with secrets.

Whispers running though my head.

I love how a librarian can say, “How about this one?”

And you can take it and weave a magic carpet.

And, if the book is splendid, I crawl inside.

Swifting, page by page, I hold wonder in my hands.

At the library everything is possible!

All this for free.

Patrice Vecchione | Del Rey Oaks

FAILING FAITH

I heard the four main guys behind the Tea Party movement who live in Louisville, Kentucky interviewed on the BBC World News. One of them said that their goal is to take control of the Congress and then pass a Constitutional Amendment requiring anyone who runs for public office to vow to promote Jesus as America’s lord and savior. They came right out and said they want a U.S. government based upon Biblical laws. They want a totalitarian Christian theocracy.

America is a “veiled theocracy” because you can’t get elected unless you say you believe in God, but the Tea Party wants to take it to the extreme.

Jeffrey Van Middlebrook | Pacific Grove