Hits and Misses
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Trinity High School students have organized Operation Sunflower, a fundraiser to help Ukraine. Organizers include, from left, front: Madison Shook, Olivia Sikora, Tommy Wickham and Kaylyn Weichel. From left, in the back row, are Emma Lorenzo, Carrie Proudfit, Anna Johnson, Emma Bowman and Riley Dunn. Missing are Agatha Niccolai, Brett Phillips and Aiden McCay.
Jeff Dean/Associated Press
Mike Gibbons
Jay LaPrete/Associated Press
Josh Mandel
To students in junior high or high school who are old enough to follow the news, what they see happening in the world must be scary – a deadly pandemic, political upheaval, and, more recently, a brutal war unfolding in Europe. It could all lead to an understandable feeling of helplessness, but students at Trinity High School have decided to lend a hand to those suffering in Ukraine by launching the fundraiser Operation Sunflower. It has jars in each classroom where students can deposit money to help out. The teacher in whatever classroom collects the most money will slip on a tutu for a day. Anna Johnson, a junior at Trinity, explained, “I know that if I was in their situation, I would want people to help me. I love helping people, and this is a way we can make a difference.”
For many years, charter schools in Pennsylvania have been the recipient of taxpayer dollars without being subject to the same kind of accountability public schools must face. Regulations approved earlier this week by the commonwealth’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission go some distance toward correcting this defect. The new rules mandate that charters follow the same auditing and fiscal management benchmarks that public schools have to meet, provide health care benefits for teachers equal to what they would receive if they were employed by a public school and post admission policies. These changes have been backed by school boards across Pennsylvania and have long been advocated by Gov. Tom Wolf. The governor said, “These regulations are a vital step in clarifying charter schools’ responsibilities to the taxpayers who fund them. … Charter schools received nearly $3 billion in publicly paid tuition this school year. Parents and taxpayers have a right to know how those resources are being used.”
We would like to think that American politics has traveled a long way from the days when a sitting vice president would kill a former treasury secretary in a duel, or a member of Congress would beat another member over the head with a cane. There’s reason to wonder how much progress we’ve actually made, though, if a confrontation last week between two Republican candidates for an open U.S. Senate seat in Ohio is any indication. At a candidate forum, Mike Gibbons and Josh Mandel almost came to blows during an argument over a stock trade Gibbons made. They stood chest-to-chest and hurled accusations at one another. Mandel then reportedly called Gibbons an epithet not suitable for publication in a family newspaper. After watching a spectacle like that unfold, the possibility of greater civility coming to our political life seems more elusive than ever.
Warm-weather months are approaching, masks are coming off and the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths has declined dramatically. While we all might be ready to put the coronavirus behind us, the coronavirus is not yet done with us. Public health officials are forecasting there could be an increase in cases looming over the horizon if what is happening in Europe is any indication, and there is always the possibility of new and more contagious variants emerging. That’s why it’s disturbing that a $15 billion funding package that would, among other things, cover a potential second booster shot for Americans, is stalled in Congress. The funding would also help pay for a vaccine that would be adjusted to fight against any new variants. With a little luck COVID-19 is slowly fading away, but we shouldn’t rely on luck. We should be prepared, and there’s reason to worry that we won’t be.