Some schools need tenured teachers

Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi said, "We hire 800 to 1,000 new teachers a year" ("New evaluations to greet teachers as classes begin," Star-Advertiser, July 3). What she didn’t mention is that the majority of these new hires end up filling vacancies in disadvantaged area schools — vacancies created by tenured (experienced) teachers departing for schools in advantaged school districts.

As a consequence of this tenure privilege, kids in disadvantaged areas for decades have been used for qualifying inexperienced teachers (probationary) for tenure. It’s a major reason for the high yearly dropout rate of over 40 percent, resulting in many ending up burdens on tax payers.

A possible solution is to require all schools with vacancies to qualify a probationary teacher for tenure before making a position available.

By the way, can an experienced teacher who remains in these schools be fairly evaluated if their students were, in previous years, taught by inexperienced teachers?

Bill Punini Prescott
Nanakuli

Praise coaches for Little League work

Great sports article written about youth baseball ("Good guys in youth baseball outnumber the bad guys," Star-Advertiser, Further Review, July 3). My almost 6-year-old twin sons played in the Shetland league last season for the first time, and are in Pinto this season. Their team is the youngest Pinto team, but they improve with every game.

I agree there are right and wrong attitudes toward the game. But the coaches deserve great respect. They do a great job in teaching the game and talking to the players instead of yelling at them.

Thank you for bringing light to this great game!

Racie Botelho
Hawaii Kai

Give homeless an airplane ticket

In hearing and reading interviews with the homeless through the media, a recurring comment from them is that many of these people are stuck in Hawaii and don’t have the funds to get back to wherever they came from off-island.

The homeless who have the mental wherewithal to be in the workforce need to be enabled to have access to jobs and become productive citizens. For Hawaii non-residents who are U.S. citizens, being moved to the mainland would be the most humane service that Hawaii could offer. An airplane ticket with attending luggage needs to be part of the homeless support package that the state supplies. If they are part of the 20 percent who truly are not capable of taking care of themselves, then the state needs to do more.

David Vornholt
Kapahulu

Flat tax can resolve immigration issue

There is a lot of discussion about the impact of the immigration reform bill.

One of the concerns is that illegal immigrants are not paying taxes and yet taking benefits from the system. One thing that the Fair Tax (a national sales tax) does is to level the playing field. Everyone pays taxes because the taxes are collected when a retail sale is made, not from income earned. This means that everyone is participating in supporting the country because everyone is paying taxes.

This includes most of the people who now escape the income tax because they do a cash business in the underground economy.

The fair tax eliminates the Internal Revenue Service as there is no filing of income tax forms (we take home our whole paycheck). The role of monitoring the collection of the sales tax becomes a state function and is limited to retail outlets.

Rob Rietow
Nuuanu

Long-distance rates not always fair

I write with a suggestion that would make land-line customers like me a lot happier about paying our phone bills: Stop charging us long-distance rates when we call nearby neighbors who happen to have cell phones. Such is the case when I call two of my friends who are literally within shouting distance of me.

I realize that from the standpoint of newfangled satellite technology that the respective physical locations of callers is irrelevant, but back here on planet Earth it looks ridiculous to charge us the same. Frankly, I feel like the phone company is sticking it to us, putting profits before customer satisfaction. It knows where the land-line customers live, and, with GPS, can tell in an instant where the cell phone is located.

If such calls within a certain distance, say 10 or 20 miles, were assessed the same as local calls, that would bring smiles to our faces. Short of that, the company could always send us two tin cans and a long coil of copper wire!

Bill Brundage
Kurtistown, Hawaii island

Spearfishing ban hurts those in need

Can someone please tell me who died and gave these four unelected functionaries on the Board of Land and Natural Resources the right to play God with people’s lives ("Land Board bans spearfishing with scuba gear," Star-Advertiser, June 29)?

In these tough economic times, we not only have the homeless displaced on Oahu with nowhere to turn, but now we are depriving people from exercising their fundamental right to eat on the Big Island. What next?

These unelected functionaries obviously haven’t thought this through or just didn’t care the impact they’d be making on many people’s lives. They need to walk in the shoes of people in need to fully appreciate their lives and the daily challenges they’re faced with.

Alice Lee
Kaneohe