Pay phone price hike is excessive

It's not just that Verizon's proposed 15-cent pay phone increase makes one feel being nickeled and dimed to death, but raising the price more than 42 percent because of a 23 percent decline in usage seems a little much.

It's audacious and avaricious -- even for a telephone company.

Richard Y. Will

Recruiting methods ensure DOE mediocrity

Those who serve the higher education endeavor are critically dependent on the high quality of our graduating high school seniors.

At the University of Hawaii the drought will continue. Indeed, watching the Department of Education recruit for its teaching staff anyone with a bachelor's degree, while refusing to hire highly talented people from out of state (for example, UH Professor Tom Kelleher's wife) reinforces the notion that no bar is too low and no level of parochialism too high for the DOE.

A person who has "earned" a bachelor's degree with a low GPA has proven that he or she does not understand the subject matter to a high degree of confidence. Putting that person in front of a classroom of students amounts to gross dereliction of responsibility.

Meanwhile, professional bureaucrats insist that "more testing of teachers" ensures higher quality. In fact, the testing procedures seem to act as impediments to quality personnel who have earned their credentials elsewhere or from "real world" experience.

I'm sure that this writer will not be the first or last one to suggest that the best cure for K-12 education in Hawaii is to eliminate its mindless bureaucracy and return the job of education (and considerable tax dollars) to teachers, parents and students.

Khalil J. Spencer

[Quotables] "We're not allowing any sharp objects or anything that has an appearance of an explosive or a gun." Marilyn Kali Hawaii Department of Transportation spokeswoman, on the increased number of items confiscated from airline passengers since the terrorist hijackings of American airliners last week. One item taken from a passenger was a lighter shaped like a pistol, above. "I don't know, man. It's not livable here anymore." Christopher Tran McCully resident whose apartment building was flooded with more than two feet of water Thursday night after a water main break.

Cayetano oversees decline of education

It's time to recall Governor Cayetano. He ran on a ticket to improve education in the state. But he has contributed more to the degradation of the education system and the loss of faith in state government than has any previous governor.

His public statements tend to rankle and cause further agitation in an already cascading state of affairs. They constitute an insult and an affront to the people who are out there trying to do a difficult job in the face of declining budgets and bureaucratic tomfoolery.

It's time for new leadership.

Richard Bacher
Wahiawa

Why all the hoopla over Harris?

I don't understand all the hoopla over Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris running for governor.

Of the 439,934 registered Honolulu voters, only 94,067 voted for Harris.

Considering his track record through the past couple of years, it shouldn't take much to defeat him, especially when you consider that the neighbor island citizens also get to vote in this election.

Louise Fleming

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