Oh brother...

•December 30, 2015•

By Mike Brothers
NP Managing Editor

Long ago in a far away place called Harrisburg, Oh Brother learned the meaning of stupid human tricks.

Like any fairly intelligent male I choose to ignore learning from my mistakes and continue trying to find grander ways to do stupid things.

In the beginning there was an innocence. I was in the third grade, and since this was before motor driven vehicles were very popular, I walked to and from school - uphill both ways.

So it made sense that such a long walk might require an occasional break on the way home from school.

It just so happened Pendell Wenrod lived only a couple of blocks from school so Steve Waite and I took our on-the-way-home break there.

Homework was slight as we were coming on Christmas break so this Friday we had our hands free and our spirits ready for adventure.

That’s when we ran into Pendell’s neighbor John Ruble. John was a year older and started talking about how he was going out to the woods and cut a Christmas tree for his mom.

This was exactly the kind of adventure a group of eight year olds was ready for so we volunteered to go along to help John carry the tree.

John grabbed a hand saw, and we were off to Liberty, a little way west, as John put it. It was after school on a Friday and about 4 p.m. before we started the journey.  Read More

•December 16, 2015•

By Mike Brothers

Every Student Succeeds is the new federal education act that promises to leave No Child Left Behind, behind.

Using a barrage of federally imposed testing No Child Left Behind tried to improve education by forcing rules from the Department of Education on local school districts.

Every Student Succeeds leaves the U.S. Dept. of Education out and moves those decisions to the state and local level.

Testing will still be a part of the way education progress is monitored, but the states may choose the testing methods.

Grades 3-8 still will take annual tests with one testing required in high school.

The testing, along with other factors, such as graduation rates, school climate and teacher engagement, determine a school district’s ranking.

The state, and not the federal government, will be required to intervene where schools score in the bottom five percent with less than a 2/3 graduation rate.

Every Student Succeeds also changes the funding formula. Programs such as the $500 million School Improvement Grant are folded into a $1.6 billion federal block grant administered through Title 1.

In the past Title 1 had helped fund technology with Sullivan using Title 1 funds to purchase ibooks for students. That funding option is still included in the new Education Act. Read More

•December 9, 2015•

By Mike Brothers
NP Managing Editor

While at the Sullivan School board meeting this week Student Council President Austin Minnigerode reported on the success of anti-bullying efforts at Sullivan High School.

It made me think about the whole bullying thing and what it was like when I was growing up.

In the south there were a lot of larger families, so bullying was kept in check by older siblings many times in grade school.

I remember in first grade this one guy was getting picked on by a fourth grader every day at lunch.

He was getting shoved around and his lunch money taken from him on a regular basis.

Until his older sister in the sixth grade found out who the bully was. The sister had done her homework and knew exactly how the bully went home from school every day.

So she waited for him. Needless to say the fourth grade bully was never able to look my friend in the eye after that.

It was a self-correcting society in our small town, but high school came along and the old big brother, big sister protection concept went by the wayside, especially if you didn’t have any older brothers or sisters.

Steve Knight and I had been friends since junior high school. We would hang out after school occasionally as freshmen.

Steve was shorter and susceptible to an occasional barb about his height but he took it in a good natured manner. Read More

•December 9, 2015•

Paragraph to the Editor,

Traditions come and unfortunately some go, but here in the valley of the West Okaw a huge bright star once again announces the season of the King from high atop the giant bins of the Heritage Grain Company. Read More

•December 2, 2015•

By Trudy Lieberman
Rural Health News Service

What a difference six years makes!

In 2009 at the height of the debate on the Affordable Care Act, New York’s former lieutenant government Betsy McCaughey appeared on television and made this startling remark: “Congress would make it mandatory-absolutely require-that every five years people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner.”

McCaughey said the proposed law would help the elderly learn how to “decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go in to hospice care…all to do what’s in society’s best interest or in your family’s best interest and cut your life short.”

Her remarks, though false, played well in the media. Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin showed up on TV to talk about “death panels” that she and others claimed would ration care at the end of life.

“No death panels” became a rallying cry for opposition to the health law. A man I interviewed at a Pennsylvania Wal-Mart that summer brought up the so-called death panels. “If people are going to die, he [Obama] is going to put them to sleep,” he told me. “It’s like Soylent Green (a 1973 science fiction movie). That’s his health plan.”

Another man I met outside a church in Scranton told me, “I am against a panel of doctors telling you when you can live and die.” When I explained that wasn’t what the law would do, he said he didn’t believe me. Read More