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Board should revisitcharter school vote

The Alameda County Board of Education’s denial of Hayward Collegiate Public Charter School’s grade-level expansion is troubling.

Despite remarkable student achievements — 67.56% meeting or exceeding ELA standards and 64.87% in math, compared to Hayward Union School District’s 33.37% and 19.37% — the expansion was rejected.

This issue deserves another vote for the students’ sake.

Eric DillieLivermore

Academic freedom hasrun amok as schools fail

Re: “Getting California kids to read elusive goal” (Page B1, May 17).

Thirty-one years ago, I debated the California Teachers Association’s executive director at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club regarding school choice.

I remarked that were California public schools actually accomplishing the outcomes they claimed then hundreds of thousands of California parents wouldn’t be purchasing “Hooked on Phonics” for home instruction.

As recounted in A Choice for Our Children, CTA’s Ralph Flynn responded, “It has taken us a hundred years to screw up the public schools, and it will probably take us another hundred to fix them.” And I thought I was the one opposing teacher-union control of schools.

CTA had declared its radical objectives (and intended distractions from teaching/learning of knowledge and skills) nine years earlier, in Guidelines for Academic Freedom in the Public Schools: “Who dares take on religion, free enterprise, patriotism, and motherhood? We do — and we must!”

Michael ArataDanville

Airport names couldhonor baseball heroes

Let’s find meaningful monikers to resolve the bitter controversy over airport names in the Bay Area.

New York has JFK and La Guardia, Chicago has O’Hare and Midway, Washington, D.C., has Dulles and Reagan, and London has Heathrow Gatwick. Why not honor local baseball legends here? SFO could become Willie Mays SF Bay International Airport, and OAK could become Ricky Henderson SF Bay International Airport — abbreviated in the vernacular to “I’m arriving at Willie Mays on Saturday,” and “What time is your flight leaving Ricky Henderson?”

Much more fun and satisfying than quibbling over who owns the two words “San” and “Francisco.”

Marilyn LangloisRichmond

We should disagreerather than condemn

Re: “Maria Shriver joins in condemnation of Harrison Butker’s speech” (Page A2, May 17).

Can we please “disagree” more and “condemn” less?

It would help if journalism we read for information without opinion on news pages like yours could also avoid “politically correct” denunciations like, in the first sentence, calling Butker’s speech “sexist.”

Butker wasn’t degrading anyone. He was trying to “lift up” the often-denigrated role of “housewife.”

The most important part of that role is bringing up children. What could be more valuable for our society than better-brought-up children?

I can understand the disagreement. Why should women have more of a role in bringing up children and otherwise managing households than men?

Well, maybe they shouldn’t, but historically, the fact that women are the gender that gives birth to children has led to their greater role with them.

Why can’t we talk about it without name-calling and magic words of contempt?

Steve KoppmanOakland

Trump’s criminalityshould cost reelection

The current hush money trial is just one of over 4,000 legal issues in which Donald Trump has been involved since the 1970s, from housing and discrimination lawsuits against him to business and tax fraud cases, defamation and interfering in elections.

I refer readers to the Wikipedia article Personal and Legal Affairs of Donald Trump for a comprehensive overview of his legal entanglements. The criminality of Trump is overwhelming. How can someone, knowing all of this, support him for president?

Robert ThomasCastro Valley

Thiessen article avoidsHouse’s shadow speaker

Re: “Johnson stands out as consequential speaker” (Page A9, May 19).

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Columnist Marc Thiessen ignores almost all behind-the-scenes work done by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, especially to pass military aid to Ukraine. Speaker Mike Johnson stalled for months before agreeing to separate Ukraine aid from border aid. In return, Jeffries gave the Democrats room to vote against the Republicans’ move to vacate Johnson. There was a mere mention of this strong bipartisan support.

And the spending bill … the majority of Republicans didn’t vote for it. Some 101 Republicans voted against it, and only 22 Democrats voted against it. Democrats passed the bill. People are unaware that Jeffries is known as the “Shadow Speaker of the House,” apparently having more power than Johnson does.

Opinion piece writers, especially as we get closer to the election, need to have the opposite opinion simultaneously printed alongside them with specifics people can verify on their own.

Lisa RiggePleasanton