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Educational fraud continues

Earlier this month, the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka The Nation’s Report Card, was released. It’s not a pretty story. Only 37 percent of 12th-graders tested proficient or better in reading, and only 25 percent did so in math. Among black students, only 17 percent tested proficient or better in reading, and just 7 percent reached at least a proficient level in math. The atrocious NAEP performance is only a fraction of the bad news. Nationally, our high school graduation rate is over 80 percent. That means high school diplomas, which attest that ...

On gun laws, Legislature is ‘waffle’ house

State legislators characteristically did nothing in 2012 after John Walton, of Butler Twp., Luzerne County, retrieved a gun that a court had ordered him to surrender and used the weapon to kill his estranged wife and himself. Under state law, Walton was allowed to surrender the gun to his brother, Donald, after John Walton’s wife, Stacy, had obtained a protection from abuse order against him. After Stacy Walton withdrew the PFA, John Walton retrieved the weapon from his brother, violating a portion of the law that requires the court to issue an order clearing the return of a weapon ...

Ryan decision satisfies his supporters

Finally, House Speaker Paul Ryan edged President Donald Trump out of the nation’s attention. The Wisconsin Republican’s astonishing announcement that he would not seek another term rocked Washington in a way that almost nothing Trump has done, said, threatened or tweeted. That is a high achievement in an age where — coast to coast, continent to continent — the president has been part of almost every conversation, the source of hope and despair, the object of wonder and horror. Of course Ryan’s decision was prompted in large measure by Trump, the planet in the political ...

Erie bishop sees light on church’s shame

The list of names is lengthy, and the damage done by the people on it is incalculable. It’s an especially egregious and enduring form of damage, done to children by betraying their innocence and trust. Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico last Friday released the names of 51 people connected to the Catholic Diocese of Erie who had been credibly accused of sexual misconduct involving minors from 1944 to the present. The list includes 34 priests or former priests, 21 of whom are dead. It also includes 17 laypeople, two of whom are dead. Some of the names on the list had previously ...

Wear blue; children need champions

T.S. Elliott famously described April as the cruelest month. For child victims of abuse and neglect, that description is only partially apt. This month, Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance marks the national observance of Child Abuse Prevention by planting 4,416 blue ribbon flags near our state Capitol in Harrisburg. Each one represents a child in Pennsylvania harmed by abuse. We add 46 black flags to this year’s display, the equivalent of two classrooms of children lost forever to the cruel senselessness and violence of abuse. But we cannot allow our anger or grief over ...

No, Hillary: Red states dynamic

Hillary Clinton is being universally panned by Republicans and Democrats for her recent rant against people who voted for Donald Trump. While giving a speech in Mumbai, India, Clinton boasted that she “won the places that represent two-thirds of Amer­ica’s gross domestic product.” She said: “So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward.” As evidence, she pointed to places such as Illinois, where she won by sizable margins. Then she added that those who voted against her “didn’t like black people getting rights, and don’t like women ...