It's not school's place to diagnose children

Regarding the story "Special-ed parents perceive threats" (Star-Bulletin, April 15): I appreciate the position these parents are in. As parents, we have by tradition control over our children. What the state has done by instituting the individual education program is taken control out of the hands of parents and placed it directly where it does not belong, and that is the public sector -- the schools.

No parent likes to be told that a child must be medicated, and frankly, not every child that does not pay attention in class has attention deficit disorder.

The school system is here to provide a service, not to medicate our children and definitely not to develop policies designed to keep people in line.

Ben Clinger

Dobelle's style is a welcome change

Richard Will's letter ("Dobelle not tuned to the island style," Star-Bulletin, April 13) criticizing Evan Dobelle for his style of entertaining University of Hawaii donors is a perfect example of why we desperately need someone like Dobelle at UH.

Our state has been bogged down in bureaucracy and mediocrity for decades because it's just plain unacceptable for anyone in public life to do anything new or different, let alone innovative or visionary. The Japanese proverb "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down" could be our state motto.

You just know that if Dobelle had put some plastic chairs out in his carport, fired up the old hibachi, and served tako poke and Bud Lite, someone would have criticized him for trying to act local. His crime isn't his party style; it's being an outsider attempting to do what we taxpayers are paying him big bucks to do -- bring change to a local institution where entropy, driven by inertia, is the order of the day.

Contrary to what Will implies with his xenophobic reverse snobbery, we really are fortunate to have Dobelle at the university. He has the vision (and the proven track record) required to transform UH into a vital element of the state's economy, not to mention a place that the best Hawaii students will choose to attend for reasons other than resident tuition.

We should quit nit-picking him and let him get on with it.

Beverly Johnsen
Lahaina

Everywhere we turn it's fees, fees and fees

A 500 percent increase in Diamond Head entry fees is unconscionable ("Diamond Head visit will cost you more," Star-Bulletin, April 13). Motorists pay $10 to enter Haleakala National Park. The theory seems to be that the motorists are outsiders, so why not make them pay? Big Island residents are outsiders on Oahu. Oahu residents are somewhat less likely to visit Haleakala than they are to visit Diamond Head.

Aren't Hawaii residents more likely to visit a park that is close, rather than one in another state? I paid retaliatory fees as a "Norteamericano" -- $25 in Peru and $61 in Chile. We already are being treated like foreigners subject to visa fees in our national parks. I paid $20 to drive through Yosemite Park.

Fees have doubled for having fingerprints taken by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, and an application for advance permission to return to an unrelinquished domicile -- many Canadians own winter homes in Hawaii -- now costs $195. Again, "those foreigners aren't from around here," so they can't object, can they?

Richard Thompson

Senators, citizens united against merger

The Citizens for Competitive Air Travel wish to express our appreciation to Sens. Ron Menor and Cal Kawamoto for holding hearings in Kona and Hilo on the Big Island, Maui and Kauai, which enabled people on the neighbor islands to express their views about the proposed merger of Aloha and Hawaiian Airlines.

The hearings these senators held on the neighbor islands and Oahu provided an opportunity for those who were for and against the merger to be heard. Questions raised by Menor and Kawamoto and a number of their Senate colleagues of both parties regarding the merger resulted in a determination by the state Senate that the proposed monopoly would be harmful to Hawaii's air transportation system.

Considerable credit also must be given to the citizens of Hawaii who saw that the proposed merger would have been detrimental to Hawaii, and made their voices heard through the petitions they signed, the calls they made to their elected officials and by attending and speaking out at public hearings.

Richard Port
Citizens for Competitive Air Travel

Cuts unfairly target immigrant students

I'm a student at Waipahu High School and the child of one the part-time teachers of English for Second Language Learners. I'm concerned about the budget cut, the security of my mother's career and the education of the immigrant children ("Cuts would hurt immigrant kids," April 4).

The budget cut will drastically affect the way the students learn. The supplies and the resources are outdated, yet we have no choice but to use them, because the person(s) responsible for the budget claims that we can't afford such things. So it is not the fault of the school that the students' standards and test scores are not meeting the requirements. Not only does this hurt the students, but it hurts the teachers who use their hard-earned money to ensure the students have adequate supplies.

My mother's concern is making sure that the immigrant students' needs are met during the learning process. That's the purpose of the ESLL teachers -- to help the child learn English and other subjects.

Finally, the immigrant students already are struggling in their classes. If you take away the part-time teachers, how can they learn anything?

Thank you for understanding our concern about the budget cut and the education of Hawaii's students.

Laura Dela Cruz
Waipahu

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