On school choice; ridiculous and silly; game room regs; politics and money

On school choice

I have gone to school online for eight years and as I near my high school graduation, I look back on celebrating and exercising my right to school choice.

Many families may not know there are many ways Americans can choose schools.

For my family, online education has been the best route. For a family that travels a lot, being able to study at Texas Virtual Academy from anywhere in the world has been a relief.

Further, choosing when I complete my work has allowed me to participate in activities and events I would have missed by attending a traditional school.

Thanks to school choice, I will graduate at 16. My schedule has given me the time to get a jumpstart on internships and community service that will help make me a successful candidate for law school. I look forward to an exciting future.

Last week was School Choice Week, an important time to examine what it means to exercise school choice. I hope you will join me in advocating for school choice.

— Maryam Ahmed, Irving

I’m proud of Dallas.

History was made as a coalition fought back against efforts to dismantle democracy on the most basic level — our school board.

An organization ironically called Support Our Public Schools began a petition drive to convert the Dallas district, which is run by a democratically elected board, into a home-rule charter district led by appointees.

Charter schools are not under the oversight of democratically elected boards. In other words, they receive public funds without any oversight, except for some bureaucrats from the Texas Education Agency.

In a 10-5 vote of the commission appointed to determine whether to write a charter, a decision was made to maintain our democratically elected board.

How did this happen? Retired educators, the NAACP, LULAC, local teachers’ unions, and a range of advocacy groups formed a broad-based coalition called Our Community, Our Schools.

Ordinary citizens united, took action, mobilized support, fought back, and won.

We mustn’t be fooled! Citizens committed to democracy and public education must be vigilant and keep our eyes wide open!

— Vicki Mokuria, Dallas

Ridiculous and silly

Jason Green says it’s “ridiculous” and “silly” that he cannot carry his handgun at his side (see: “Supporters of open carry rally at state Capitol,” Jan. 27).

Every other advanced, civilized society views us as ridiculous, silly and insane for even taking such a proposal seriously.

And state Rep. Jonathan Stickland claims the right to bear arms “comes from God almighty.”

Does the good representative have a source for this? A private message in a dream?

It certainly isn’t the Constitution, which does not refer to a deity.

As Bertrand Russell observed, there will always be delusional maniacs among us. But Russell also pointed out that we need not choose these maniacs to be our political leaders.

— Richard Galvin, Fort Worth

Game room regs

When reading about the new game room ordinance in Fort Worth that implied it was OK for convenience stores, bars and bingo halls to have a few machines, I was reminded of being a little bit pregnant, or a little bit dead.

— John W. Roach, Fort Worth

Politics and money

A recent Star-Telegram headline, “Big donors named to state panel” tells all.

Thank you to the U.S. Supreme Court for Citizens United.

I wonder what the Founders would have to say about this modern day democracy. .

— James L. Anton, Arlington

This story was originally published January 30, 2015 at 6:56 PM with the headline "On school choice; ridiculous and silly; game room regs; politics and money."