Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States as compiled by the Associated Press:
Mosquitoes are bad enough in Wisconsin without having to worry about bites causing terrible birth defects.
Congress should quickly grant the Centers for Disease Control’s request for funding to fight the Zika virus.
The U.S. Senate, with bipartisan support, just approved $1.1 billion for efforts to exterminate mosquitoes that carry the virus, testing and vaccine research. That’s down from the president’s request of $1.9 billion but more than the $622 million the House wants to spend.
It’s been three long months since President Barack Obama requested the money. All the while, the CDC has issued increasingly urgent warnings about the need to act quickly to prevent an outbreak in the United States.
The longer Congress waits to steer money to the CDC, the more likely the virus will spread – costing more money to contain than it would now to prevent.
America shouldn’t panic. At the same time, America shouldn’t put off prudent effort and expense to ensure the public is safe.
It should be no surprise Baylor University regents removed Ken Starr as president over his administration’s handling of sexual assault complaints against scholarship football players. A law firm’s exhaustive investigation made clear that had to happen.
But the firing of football coach Art Briles was a bombshell – and an encouraging one, at that. Winning, for a change, wasn’t the only thing.
Regents appropriately apologized to those women who sought help from their university but received little in return. Board chair Richard Willis said regents were “horrified by the extent of these acts of sexual violence on our campus.”
Whether or not he had firsthand knowledge, Starr was ultimately responsible for all that happened at the world’s largest Baptist university under his watch. But Briles knew. Baylor wanted a big-time college football program, and Briles gave them one. When that happens, though, nothing moves without the all-powerful coach saying so.
In Waco, Texas, at Baylor, no single person was more all-powerful than Art Briles. Not even Ken Starr. Briles was too good a coach, as his record at Baylor would attest, to have been unaware or unable to control so many athletes whose behavior could bring only shame, particularly to a university with Baylor’s laudable moral and ethical standards.
Five football players accused of eight or more instances of sexual assault since 2009 defines lack of institutional control. College programs – and their coaches – are punished for far less than a documented pattern of violence against women. Certainly, Baylor must have expected more from Briles for $6 million a year.
One online charter school in Ohio informed students they had to be logged onto the institution’s website for only 60 minutes a day. Another had just 16 full-time students, not the 57 it claimed. Others claim students spend the five hours a day required by the state, but cannot prove it.
For this, Ohioans are paying $275 million a year in subsidies to online charter schools. Talk about a bad deal.
State-subsidized charter schools have been a nightmare for Ohioans since they were established just a few years ago. Some requiring in-person attendance were caught lying about enrollment as well as student achievement. The state itself got caught lying in reports about charter school success, at one point telling federal officials the number of failing charters in Ohio was just one-tenth the actual figure.
State officials worked hard to clean up their act – but clearly, they have a long road yet to travel in that regard.
Properly regulated and monitored, charter schools can be an excellent addition to a state’s public education network. But that simply has not happened in Ohio.