Why is SAT tampering case
still being investigated?

I was very pleased to read your Nov. 25 editorial, "Retaking test." I believe strongly that Principal Melanie Gibb's tampering with the SAT test needs to be looked at closely.

Windward District Superintendent Ruby Hiraishi has been investigating this since Oct. 23. Why has this taken so long when the principal has already accepted responsibility?

Nancy Morgan
Kaaawa

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Governor’s commitment
to ‘crossroads’ is lacking

Governor Cayetano recently stated the university should support an Asian-Pacific perspective: "The Pacific is our world. Not Europe." Kapiolani Community College is one part of the university that has an Asian/Pacific across-the-curriculum perspective. It is time that the governor be apprised of how his budget cuts have cut the heart out of Pacific/Asian languages at this community college.

Under federal grants, KCC developed first and second-year language courses in Filipino, Korean, Chinese, Russian, Hawaiian and Samoan. The current mandate to serve the same number of students, with 20 percent fewer funds, results in course-offering by the numbers. Intermediate Tagalog has not been taught for two years. Intermediate Korean will be terminated mid-course. All sections of Samoan and Russian have disappeared from the class list.

Seven courses, including Chinese Literature in English Translation, and Beginning Chinese on cable TV exist, but there is no position for a full-time instructor.

It is time for the governor to decide once and for all whether "Hawaii: the crossroads of East and West" is just a campaign slogan or a realistic goal worthy of investment in the educational system. Perhaps the governor should take a tip from a small country at the "crossroads of Europe" with four official languages plus English. Switzerland provides quality, environmentally responsible tourism, thriving business and commercial enterprises at the geographical "crossroads" and high-paying professional/technical jobs for its citizens: a center for banking, commerce, craftsmanship and international art galleries - as well as tourism.

Intellectual, technical and communication skills are valuable assets for our community at the crossroads of Asia and the Pacific. Lacking these we will continue to be merely a rest stop or vacation destination en route to serious enterprise elsewhere. Why not invest in the public school system, community colleges and university that can truly make Asia and the Pacific our world?

Carol Beresiwsky
Professor/French and Spanish
Kapiolani Community College

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BOE suggestions hurt teachers,
rather than help

I am a Kula School teacher and I am responding to Board of Education member Kelly King's letter to the editor (Nov. 19). In her letter, King calls Kula School teachers "arrogant and insulting." One would hope that this is not the attitude of the entire BOE, although given the recent history of contract negotiations one wonders.

Even though it is not responsible for negotiating salaries, during negotiations for a new contract, the BOE has advanced a number of proposals that are regressive and clearly not supportive of us.

The BOE has proposed an increase in both the work day and work year without any corresponding increase in pay.

The BOE has also proposed that teachers be required to be on call evenings and weekends for certain meetings regarding Special Ed students coupled with a proposed $25 stipend (would you be happy about giving up several hours in an evening or on the weekend for $25?), which the BOE says there is no money for and accordingly even that minimal amount cannot be paid.

The BOE also has proposed that certain "off-line" positions (e.g. school counselors) may be converted to meet the state-required 26.15-to-1 student-teacher ratio, which would result in either larger classes or fewer services, both of which will adversely affect students.

King asserts that the BOE has passed a resolution supporting the teacher pay raise. I have not, however, seen the BOE as a group forcefully, publicly and earnestly urge such a pay raise.

Martin Kahn
Pukalani , Maui

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Motorists are driving
each other crazy on Oahu

I read with great amusement Debra Barayuga's Dec. 3 account of traffic-related altercations on Oahu's roads. Though I was raised in Hawaii, I am still perplexed by the actions of island drivers.

Here in Beantown, it's common to expect four lanes of 50-mph traffic to merge into a two-lane on-ramp onto an interstate, and where six- and seven-spoke rotaries are the norm while traffic signals are malfunctioning or blinking yellow.

Yet we deal with it! In what most outsiders opine as home of the nation's most offensive drivers, Boston drivers get by without "beefing" with or aiming weapons at the person who happens to cut us off.

I don't think Oahu residents have learned that life is too short, stresses too great and our happiness too precious to quarrel over a missed opportunity to turn onto the highway. Rather, that's what a horn is for!

I know of the anti-horn-blowing tendencies in Hawaii, but I'd much rather hear a horn blaring than have someone step out of a car to cause me harm.

Douglas K. Mashino
Boston, Mass.
(Via the Internet)

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It was another great year
for creative cartoonist

As 1996 draws to a close, I would be remiss if I didn't extend my gratitude and appreciation to Star-Bulletin editorial cartoonist Corky Trinidid for his wonderful, colorful, stimulating and amusing efforts to bring a sense of reality to the news.

Keep up the good work.

Jerry B. Norris