Montgomery County should give laptops to all students
Re: “More poor kids in area schools,” May 23
The cost of public schools in Montgomery County is about half the county budget. Expansion costs must be curtailed without hurting kids. It’s time for the county to catch up with the rest of the world and use laptops to teach English, math, physics and other subjects.
More than 1.5 million OLPCs (One Laptop Per Child) have been provided to foreign countries. The state of Maine is providing a laptop to each student in grades 7 to 12 for about $150 each per year under its current three-year contract with Apple, and plans to expand the program to all pre-college students by 2014.
This approach improves student achievement at less expense to taxpayers, because learning can take place any time and any place, including at home, where parents can learn, too.
G. Stanley Doore
=”text-align:>
Columnist should get his facts straight
Re: “Save $2.6 million — Kill Office of Police Complaints,” May 12
The next time that Harry Jaffe wants to propose that the D.C. Office of Police Complaints be eliminated, he should get his facts straight. Mr. Jaffe claims that the office issued only “zero decisions” so far this year. The correct number is 172. He claims that last year, the office issued six decisions. The correct number is 338.
He further claims that the office is “redundant” because it only gets a case after the Metropolitan Police Department has investigated and federal prosecutors have declined to prosecute. Actually, the police department does not investigate citizen complaints filed with our agency, and federal prosecutors only review complaints involving excessive force allegations — a very small fraction of the total number we receive.
Mr. Jaffe credits the Fraternal Order of Police’s “well-argued” letter to judiciary committee Chairman Phil Mendelson for making the case to “ax” the office. Assuming that he is relying on the union’s letter for the wrong statistics he cites, neither he nor the FOP has made a very good case to do away with independent police review in Washington, D.C.
Philip K. Eure
=”text-align:>
=”text-align:>=”text-align:>
