News flash: College graduate literacy declines. Gee, why?

The Dec. 26 Post-Gazette carried a Washington Post story reporting an astonishing and inexplicable decline in the ability of college graduates to read and analyze information ("College Graduate Literacy Declines"). The experts seem completely baffled. Golly gee, how could this possibly be explained?

Could it have anything to do with the massive defunding of public higher education going on nationwide? Could it have anything to do with the vacuous and contemptuous advice to "do more with less"?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that the number of undergraduate teaching faculty has been declining for a decade in order to balance budget cuts? Could it have anything to do with the insistence that students are units, not thinking humans, and that colleges and universities should be run like a business?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that the classes which are supposed to develop reading, analytical and critical-thinking skills are now bloated with hundreds (even thousands at large research universities) of students, and this "productivity" is encouraged and rewarded in the Legislature's funding formulas?

Could it have anything to do with the attitude that government should intimidate liberal professors who might require students to think about something they don't already believe?

Nah! What loony left ideas! The obvious solution is to give more tax cuts to rich white guys.

WILLIAM BARNES
Clarion

The writer is a professor at Clarion University of Pennsylvania.

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A fine journey

The Post-Gazette recently printed a news article (Dec. 20) and editorial ("Setting Sail," Dec. 26) regarding the Institute for Shipboard Education's decision to move its Semester at Sea program to the University of Virginia. While we are very pleased that our program will be affiliated with such a prestigious school, this announcement should not take away from the 25 wonderful years we were affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh.

Our dispute with Pitt was limited to two senior administrators and does not reflect the high level of respect and gratitude we have for the majority of directors, deans, faculty, staff, students, and others from the university, who over the years have provided a tremendous amount of support to the Semester at Sea program. The success of our program today can be directly attributed to the hundreds of faculty, staff and students from Pitt who participated in Semester at Sea and remain supportive of the program. It is our sincere hope that faculty, staff and students will continue to be a part of Semester at Sea long into the future.

Many of us have lived and worked in Pittsburgh for 20 or more years and we will truly miss the community and the hospitality that has been extended to us by colleagues at the university and the community in general. Moving to Virginia is bittersweet for us, but we do so knowing that Pittsburgh is just up the road, a weekend commute away. We will always be Steelers, Pirates and Penguin fans, but most importantly we will remain fans of all the wonderful people we have met in Pittsburgh who have supported Semester at Sea.

Thank you, Pittsburgh, for a great 25 years together.

LES McCABE
President
Institute for Shipboard Education
Oakland

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Targeted equally

I've noticed many letters to the PG complaining about the content of political cartoons in the paper and how they must mirror the paper's philosophy, particularly regarding the Bush administration. These same writers probably did not protest the subject matter of cartoons published during the Clinton presidency.

A political cartoonist uses current events as the basis of his material. Both Presidents Bush and Clinton have provided large amounts of material. Viewing a political cartoon should provoke thought and/or laughter. It should be taken for what it is -- a cartoon.

JOE BURNS
Bethel Park

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Two-way street

The Post-Gazette's Dec. 23 editorial regarding the strike by transit workers in New York ("NY Grinches") was shocking in its strident anti-public sector union sentiments.

Calling the transit workers "thuggish" and "selfish" the PG says that the union should have kept working with no contract while negotiating with their bosses at the city's transit authority, but negotiating is a two-way street. If my boss, knowing that my job is essential to the public good, uses that as leverage to get me to "take it or leave it" and then dares me to walk off the job, that is not negotiating.

The Post-Gazette heaps praise on New York's Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg for their hard-nosed response to the strike. I want to know what these two were doing in the days before the strike? One month ago in the days leading up to a possible transit strike here, Gov. Ed Rendell came to Pittsburgh and personally facilitated intense negotiations between our public transit workers and the Port Authority. Happily, a strike was averted.

Seems like all Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg could do was resort to name-calling and threat-making after the strike had begun.

In the final analysis, the strike by the transit workers in New York worked. It forced the city's transit authority to reopen good-faith negotiations with its employees.

The thought of a public transit strike horrifies me. I wholly depend on public transit. But many of us "common people" who ride public transit in New York City and in Pittsburgh know what worker solidarity means. Perhaps the editorial board of the Post-Gazette doesn't.

STEPHEN DONAHUE
Bloomfield

The writer is co-founder of Save Our Transit.

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A grateful student

I couldn't help but smile at David Jimenez's letter yesterday ("Gifted Center, Yes,"). I thought the same thing.

As I prepare to graduate from college, my fondest memories of my education are from the Wednesdays that I attended the Pittsburgh Gifted Center. I remember the odd trust of teachers who pushed beyond minimum education. The freedom of the gifted program was simple: If you want to learn, then we will do whatever possible to teach it to you.

I entered the gifted program when it was located at Woolslair Elementary in Bloomfield. The building was bursting with ancient civilizations, geometry models, fake blood, ooze -- the products of keen minds. In middle school, Banksville welcomed us every Wednesday with lessons on art, music and fables. In 1998, the program moved to the third floor of Greenway Middle. It was the Narnia of our education.

In high school, the Centers for Advanced Study program was a letdown from the oasis of nerdiness. Peer pressure made it unacceptable to be "gifted." Many dropped out because the program felt like extra work without extra learning.

Closing the gifted center and moving the programs to individual schools will quash excitement for learning during the formative years. It would be a detriment to the brilliant children that the Pittsburgh Public Schools have produced. The program was a citadel of creative learning, and I'd hate to see it stormed.

TRACEY J. BERG
Kennedy

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The tight deadline for property assessment appeals is another fiasco

As a lawyer who is representing property owners in the appeals process, I felt compelled to attend the arguments presented to county Court of Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. concerning the assessment fiasco in Allegheny County ("Judge Seems to Favor Plan for Assessing," Dec. 22). It concerns me that the county allows the confusion surrounding these matters to extend beyond the appeal deadline.

The appeal deadline is approaching -- it's this coming Tuesday -- and I can't count the number of property owners that I have spoken with who are waiting for the litigation to be resolved before they decide whether or not they should appeal. They fail to realize that they will be losing their rights if they do not file before Jan. 3, 2006. It appears that the county wishes to keep the issues surrounding the assessments as complex and as confusing as possible, at least until the appeal deadline passes and the tax dollars for grossly overassessed properties become due and owed.

Traditionally the deadline to file appeals has been February/March and extensions have typically granted to allow citizens to make an informed decision. To my knowledge there has been no mention of extending the deadline. One might ask why the county is in such a hurry to shut the window on appeals, but ultimately the answer is obvious: tax dollars.

County Chief Executive Dan Onorato says "you shouldn't have to appeal your way to uniformity," but this is exactly what the system he has devised requires. If property owners desire uniformity, that uniformity comes with a price tag. Property owners who do file an appeal can expect to encounter appraisal fees, expert testimony fees and possibly attorney fees in order to be successful. Most citizens are reluctant to incur that expense when there is no finality in sight.

JOSEPH P. REWIS
Joseph Murphy & Associates
Squirrel Hill