The abject failure of the local school district

To the editor:

My only question about Vin Suprynowicz's tour de force expose of the Clark County School District printed in Sunday's Review-Journal: How can this truth receive wider exposure to the public?

Not to slight the Review-Journal, but I would guess only a small percentage of Clark County voters read this excellent example of investigative reporting. This story belonged on the front page.

I am the husband of a recently retired schoolteacher, and I have long groused at the social promotion encouraged by district administrators. In fact, many principals and other school administrators frequently make it difficult for a classroom teacher to hold back a student. Mr. Suprynowicz, with unerring documentation and unflinching words, confirmed with facts what I had sensed from anecdotal stories. Perhaps a follow-up series of investigatory articles naming names and exposing the abject failure of the educational system in Clark County would shake up the bureaucracy to the point of creating meaningful reforms and improvements that are real.

Thank you for this excellent piece of work.

Ron Ecklund

Henderson

Good system

To the editor:

For the life of me, I cannot understand why some Las Vegans think the coroner's inquest system is so inadequate when the majority of jurisdictions in the United States have much less rigorous procedures in place to deal with fatal officer-involved shootings. Instead of being thankful that Las Vegas is more open than most about fatal police shootings, they demand that the process be made even more stringent ("adversarial" is the term bandied about).

I killed a man in the line of duty when I was a young Las Vegas officer. I went through the coroner's inquest process, and it was a gut-wrenching experience to lay my soul, emotions and thought processes bare to the jury, the family of the deceased, the spectators and the media. As difficult as it was, I spoke freely and without reservation. The jury voted justifiable.

Had the current proposals being touted by the ACLU and others of that ilk been in place back then, I can guarantee I would have behaved differently. First of all, I would have "lawyered up," and I would have exerted my right against self-incrimination at the first question by the prosecutor. Heck, I probably wouldn't have even spoken to Internal Affairs at the scene of the shooting.

As for a "representative" (lawyer) of the family of the deceased getting to have at me in order to flesh out his pending wrongful death lawsuit, it would have been the Fifth Amendment all the way. I would rather take my chances with a grand jury which, in many communities, is the way fatal officer-involved shootings are dealt with.

Get real, Las Vegas. Your system is much more open and advanced than most in this country and has worked effectively for almost half a century. To turn it into an "adversarial" process will render it ineffective at best and useless at worst.

Eric Cooper

GARDNERVILLE

The writer is a retired Las Vegas police undersheriff.

Entitlement danger

To the editor:

Sen. Harry Reid's commercials paint Sharron Angle as being a threat to Social Security.

The program has $2.6 trillion in IOUs backed by the U.S. government. Federal solvency is required for the money to be repaid to retirees. Sen. Reid has pushed budget deficits that directly threaten Social Security's ability to meet its obligations.

This little tidbit won't be in his commercials.

Matt Davis

Henderson

Wild about Harry

To the editor:

Good grief. The Review-Journal has chosen to endorse an unqualified fringe candidate over the majority leader of the U.S. Senate (Sunday editorial)? Are you sure you are on Nevada's side? Did Sen. Harry Reid steal your girlfriend in fifth grade, and you're still mad about it?

Come on Review-Journal. Let's get serious about helping our state out of this mess. We can't do it with the likes of Sharron Angle.

Carol Kerner

Las Vegas

Constitutional limits

To the editor:

After ardently following politics for many years now, I have come to the conclusion that ideology doesn't matter -- or at least it shouldn't. The reality of our political landscape is that we as a nation have allowed ourselves to be led off the reservation of constitutional limits.

Let's compare our politicians to football players. When we send our team onto the field we don't care what their personal viewpoints are. It doesn't matter what religious beliefs they hold. It doesn't even matter what charities they contribute to. What matters is that they play well and obey the rules. It seems to me that government has become a game of "he who has the ball, makes the rules."

This is the exact reason why we as a nation have become ideologically polarized. Why is it we have come to root for politicians that violate the Constitution, so long as they are violating the parts we don't agree with?

If we wish to survive as a nation, I believe that we as a voting public need to make it our No. 1 priority to become familiar with the limits imposed on government authority by the Constitution and vote for candidates who hold these limits as sacred.

John Mayes

Las Vegas