Dec 23, 2017 4 min read

Editorial voices from newspapers across the United States:

The Cape Cod

(Mass.) Times

Neil de Grasse Tyson, the author, astrophysicist, and education advocate, once said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”

Unfortunately, for an ever-growing number of Americans, it seems the same can be said about fiction.

Take as a case in point a message sent recently by the Tweeter-in-Chief to his 45 million followers. The dispatch, originally sent by the leader of a British neo-fascist right-wing political organization, contains three videos that purport to show Muslim individuals beating up innocent people and destroying Christian religious icons. Playing as he often does to his base supporters, many of whom believe that Islam is a faith of hatred, President Trump did not even bother verifying that the videos were accurate before sending them out.

The veracity of the video is not just an issue; it is the central one, especially as the most powerful person in the free world is sending it out in the same manner that he shares most of his foreign and domestic policy decisions. One would hope that the president was basing his decisions or his outrage du jour on something that at least had a semblance of being factual.

Although the current administration may realize some short-term victories by creating this atmosphere, the long-term impact on our democratic institutions could be catastrophic. We cannot have multiple sets of facts and expect a nation divided against itself to remain strong. An informed electorate is critical to a fully function democracy. Unfortunately, we are seeing in real time just what happens when this is not the case.

Oxford (Miss.) Eagle

Greek organizations have been a large part of life in our community because they have been active on the Ole Miss campus for more than 100 years. That’s why when a national organization indefinitely suspends one of its chapters on campus it is major news. The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at Ole Miss is one of the oldest on campus and word of its suspension has rattled some students and alumni.

The national organization cited “the result of health and safety concerns” among its reasons for indefinitely suspending the chapter, releasing all pledges and suspending all active members.

Being proactive is a good thing, because we have learned in the past year from tragic results at Penn State and Louisiana State University that Greek behavior like hazing and widespread alcohol and drug abuse can have dire consequences.

Charleston (W.Va.)

Daily Mail

The West Virginia Board of Education last month put out for public comment proposals to change the state’s required number of credits for high school graduation and change the non-weighted course grading scale.

The suggested changes are seen by many as weakening education standards and could bring achievement further down in a state that already ranks low on that scale. Among the proposed changes are suggestions to reduce the state’s required number of credits for high school graduation from 24 to 21, lighten social studies requirements and liberalize the nonweighted course grading scale.

As expected, the perceived “dumbing down” of West Virginia’s education standards is not a wise idea for some.

In a world with an increasingly global economy, many argue that social studies, including history and world cultures, are more important than ever and should not be lightened. But social studies is a subject no longer tested in West Virginia’s standardized achievement tests. So perhaps social studies credits have lower value to education officials concerned with higher standardized test scores.

The Board of Education is commended for being open to change, and the board and lawmakers should be working to allow more local control. But lowering achievement standards seems to be the wrong way to go about it.