Letters to the editor Aug. 26

History repeating itself at ground zero

A house of worship is constructed within sight of hallowed American ground immediately creating controversy. It's Aug. 11, 1834, in Charleston, Mass., and driven by their phobia of Catholicism, Protestant radicals take action. To the cry of, "not within sight of Bunker Hill, where the blood of heroes flowed" a mob converged on the Ursuline Convent and burned it to the ground.

Today a new movement has begun to prevent construction of an Islamic house of worship near Ground Zero. The reason? It's insensitive to the victims of 9/11. Seems reasonable at first, but consider this: Christian churches are built throughout the South without any regard to the victims of a myriad of bombings and lynchings conducted by the KKK; churches are built from New York to Utah along a trail where countless Mormons were murdered because of their faith.

The situation is the same: Thousands dead because of criminal acts carried out by religious extremists. To say every follower of Islam is a terrorist that shares responsibility for 9/11 is the same as saying every follower of Christ is a Nazi that shares responsibility for the Holocaust.

Those who burned the Ursuline Convent did so because they did not want a house of worship from a religion they did not understand or trust next to a sacred American monument.

So, shall we follow their lead and deny these Muslims their right as Americans to build a house of worship? If so, America is no longer land of the free.

Christopher MacMahon

Carson City

Fremont signing on to questionable reading program

Since the initial implementation of the Success for All reading program in Baltimore public schools in 1987, questions have been raised about the validity of its research base and the accuracy of its achievement record.

SFA's developers, Robert Slavin and his wife Nancy Madden, are co-directors of the SFA Foundation at Johns Hopkins University. From their position, the Slavins secured millions of dollars to conduct research on their own program. They have inundated professional journals with their tainted research.

Much of the analysis that supports SFA was conducted by researchers tied to Slavin. Steven Ross of the University of Memphis was instrumental in getting SFA into Memphis public schools and was the chief evaluator of the program. Slavin funded Ross's research and Ross oversees the regional training center for SFA on the UM campus.

Slavin has powerful friends in Washington who have made his program the defacto choice among schools that seek Title I funding for disadvantaged students. Representative David Obey of Wisconsin decreed in federal legislation that Slavin would receive the lion's share by naming SFA in that legislation.

On July 28, the Nevada Appeal reported that Fremont Elementary will implement the SFA program this year. CCSD administrators seem to turn a blind eye to the evidence. After 10 years of SFA implementation in the three Title I schools only half of fourth grade students are reading proficiently. Why is this expensive, questionable program being pushed into another school?

Sharon S. Kientz

Carson City