Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States as compiled by the Associated Press:
Next school year, many students graduating from public high schools might do so without a full understanding of the nation’s history.
That’s because new history standards were approved this year that don’t overtly require that early U.S. history be taught in high school.
College history professors and instructors balked at the changes, but they were still approved by the South Dakota Board of Education. High school students will only be required to take one U.S. history course, in 11th grade. Yes, that could be early U.S. history, which generally covers the nation’s story through the Civil War. But it could also be modern U.S. history, the stretch from after the Civil War through modern times, or a comprehensive course.
It’s true, such topics are covered in history classes when students are younger. But history teachers say those lessons are often made age-appropriate, and high school graduates sometimes show up for college with an incomplete grasp our nation’s past – the good parts and the bad.
The standards are set, though, with an increased focus on problem solving and critical thinking instead of, well, history itself.
To know where you’re going, you have to understand the past.
Donald Trump stands alone.
Not that there aren’t people who agree with his reckless manifesto against Muslims – of course there are.
But we cannot believe that Trump and his followers represent America. No more than we believe the two terrorists who killed 14 people and wounded many others in San Bernardino, Calif., last week represent the world’s more than 1.6 billion Muslims or the estimated 2.75 million Muslims of all ages in the United States.
There are radical Islamic extremists among the world’s Muslim population. That much is clear from the rise of the Islamic State and its sponsorship of world terrorism. Dealing with this threat requires concentrated attention from our government, top to bottom, as well as a high level of alert from all of us.
But it simply does not stand the test of reason to say we should retaliate against all Muslims by banning their entry into the United States. They are business leaders crucial to our economic interests, students in our universities, families in our neighborhoods, children in our schools.
We cannot turn our backs on our friends.
To watch the cruiser dash-cam video of Chicago police killing a 17-year-old is to know something wrong happened that evening. Yet officials fought the video’s release for 13 months before losing a court battle over it. They then condemned and indicted the officer on a first-degree murder charge the same day the video was released to the public.
Cincinnati and Ohio as a whole must ensure our law enforcement officials – police and prosecutors – are above such suspicion. Police video, captured by either cruiser or body cameras, is a public record and must be promptly released to the public. Prosecutors and police should not get to decide if and when the public will see the truth.
Open access to police video strengthens trust between the public and police departments, its ready availability a sign of accountability and good faith. When police or prosecutors decide to withhold certain video footage, as happened in Chicago, they endanger the public’s trust. Uncertainty breeds mistrust. Mistrust snaps crucial ties among police, prosecutors and the communities they serve.
Police are public servants. The public has the right to know what its police force is doing, so the public must have prompt and ready access to video that reveals in close detail the actions of law enforcement. Such access will strengthen its faith in those who ensure its law and order. Blocking or delaying access to police video erodes public trust.