Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 14, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba Brian Cole 6977044 readers9 forum Winnipeg free press Ai october my m minister Loput funding where her Mouth is education cuts harmful anyone Reading education minister Linda Mclntosh com ments in the free Multi Tosh rejects Ontario could get the impression that Manitoba teachers and students teach and learn under Ideal conditions and enlightened Lead Premier Mike Harris and his former education minister John snob Len took a More direct role in dictating class slashing Prepa ration and defining teachers working conditions in Ontario Public schools than has been taken but because the Manitoba government has funded an Ever shrinking portion of Public school costs this school year its Only 62 per cent and has legis lated restrictions to teacher bargain the net effect is the same in Manitoba As in Harriss is Mcintosh is half right in saying that allowing local school boards to have taxing capability allows them to adapt to local unfortunately local conditions include huge disparities in the tax bases of local school and in their Capaci ties to raise How can she justify school Board numbers which show one division spending per Stu while another spends Only per child Doest she realize the tremendous difference this makes in the programs divisions can offer their children because of these learn ing student teacher ratios and Access to teacher counsel clinicians Are All Over the map in Manitoba 55 school no one wants Public school children to get a second class education because they live in a have not division that cant compensate for the annual drop in provincial government but that is the reality in Many Manitoba the ministers government has done nothing to Correct these inequities Short of a feeble attempt to encourage voluntary amalgamation Between any informed teacher will be particularly galled at is Mclntosh comments about preparation Mike Harris is using Manitoba As an example to justify his legislated cuts to Ontario teachers preparation time because Manitoba is the province with the least amount of preparation time per teacher in All of is Mclntosh has made this connection by it is True that time is a local but As Money becomes reducing prep time is one Way boards can squeeze an extra course or two out of each teacher and thereby reduce staff and that exactly whats nearly 700 classroom teaching positions disappeared from Manitoba schools Between 1990 and we still dont know the tally for the 9697 school the minister talks of the value of rested she knows quite Well that her governments education and funding policies have resulted in deteriorating teaching and learning conditions in Manitoba exhausted and demoralized she makes the right noises when she Speaks to the but teachers across Manitoba Are now asking her to seriously consider putting her funding where her Mouth Diane Beresford Manitoba teacher society too much stones coverage like Many found it quite disheartening to see the overload of Media coverage for the recent rolling stones Are free press read ers considered so dense that they must be informed half a dozen times that the rolling stones might be coming to Winnipeg just As Many people attended the u2 concert this for that the Pink Floyd concert a few years yet the Media coverage for these shows was much less sub in the the older generations have told the younger generations Parent to teenager that this what Ever this May be is what real music sounds statement easily Dis missed by the younger but in the information age of the with the baby Boomer generation hold ing the the entire mainstream Media inform us what real music is by Canon izing musicians of the and 70s and relegating Only a passing glance to those of the 80s and m we Are bombarded with images of the so called Golden age of Rock n Roll As though that was the Apex of pop ukr i acknowledge the fact at one bands such As the rolling stones revolutionized mainstream but the suggestion that the music of today can never equal that of the Days of Yore is 9 myopic idea that i cannot like is said to serve the interests of the but neither manage to do where newspaper journalism differs from Petite is in its ability to eater to nearly every segment of the Popula How to reach us the free press tenets letters must be and should include a clearly printed address and for style and Short letters m less Likely to be please address letters to letters to the Winnipeg free 1355 Mountain Winnipeg fi2x letters can be sent to our fax number letters May be submitted through the internet at , letters sent via the internet obviously cannot be but must include Home address and Telephone it is possible for a newspaper to gauge the popularity of a determine the degree to which it should be for if approximate people attend a u2 concert and roughly the same amount attend a rolling stones then it follows that the two bands Are equally popular at least in Winnipeg and should be covered equally by the Media regardless of the personal ions of the Lis Quirion Winnipeg credit unions meet needs i read with amusement fridays Arti Cle about the outrage of the major Banks at the Assiniboine credit unions aggressive marketing its quite laughable that the major Banks actually expect the Public to believe they have anything but their profits As top in response to Royal Bank vice pres ident Dennice Leahey you do not see credit unions sponsoring the pan am games and you do not see them giving to every capital Campaign that is going on in this City because these financial institutions Are actually putting their Money toward serving their members and their com the Banks seem to have gouged their clients sufficiently enough to be Able to afford High pro file marketing campaigns such As the ones associated with corporate Spon lets face the Banks do not contribute to All these High profile causes for purely philanthropic Rea sons they do this because its Good for my experience has been that Banks Are Only concerned with where the Money not with the Little Here is an example of what i a few months the Royal Bank turned us Down for a despite the fact that we had excellent because they refused to take into consideration the individual merits of our when we took our business to a credit we were pleasantly sur prised with the personalized service we and the efficiency with which the organization knowing what i know i will never Deal with another Bravo to Manitoba credit Shamdas Sukhan Winnipeg fall Hope of Spring a few weeks visiting a River Val Ley introduced me to a symphony of fall later that i walked through fallen leaves and was trans ported Back to a childhood spent crunching the remnant of a fading summer beneath my fall for All the sep members leaves carry a sense of sad Ness because the life of summer is in their crunch and these leaves Are messengers of the of life gone a Friend of mine has just said Good Bye to her Falls truest mean ing has become All too real to her for like the we All must and in passing her Mother has left this rolling Prairie too too Sud without time to soften the Shock of fall my aged Grandfather is in his final Days and grows weaker by the his handsome look coloured by the Frost of old age will soon be covered by a Winters but he is a Man of Faith and looks to a Day when he too will have a new begin Ning in the presence of the the one who created fall leaves has also left us the Hope of Art Vesterdal Oak blk fire trucks stalled by train i observed something which was very interesting and also i live on Taylor Avenue and my apart ment faces the at approximately i noticed fire trucks proceeding Down Wilkes which is of the other Side of the rail Way while this is More fire trucks Are going West on there is More to the world of Rock n Roll than the rolling a Young Reader Taylor and turning South on just As one truck is about to Cross the a train is coming from the West and going the railway Cross ing arms were Down and the fire truck sat there As the very first vehicle and waited for a train that was about 100 metres from the the train was very Long and it took nearly five minutes to completely Cross the More fire trucks arrived and were totally incapacitated while the train this train was unusually i was very uncomfortable knowing that these trucks were in route to a Call and get does this happen frequently what does the fire department do about situations such As these just think about what can happen in five what if it was the police or an ambulance Perry Derksen Winnipeg random act of kindness for the better part of my Ive believed in and expected the Best of most the Media have to report the news and we often see our world at its this i would like your readers to know that All is not that there Are some real Nice people out my Mother and i were travelling to Winnipeg to stay with my aunt moms sister while my Uncle had major we stopped at the Sandilands Forest rest area and since it was a hot and humid i decided to leave our car running with the air conditioning on i pushed the door car run key in ignition none in pocket a Young family was picnicking near the Entrance of the Park and i approached them and explained what had without any hesitation the gentleman Charlie Cheadle asked wife Susan to take me to Piney to Call for he advised that he would stay at the Park with the car and their Young Colin and see if he could open the again without any Susan Cheadle bundled mom and me into their car and took us to she drove to a garage where three Young men were they called numerous people they knew who would help it was Early on a Beautiful sunday afternoon and no the men had fashioned some openers and said they were will ing to accompany us and try to open the they worked on the car for at least an what cheering when they were successful Mother offered to pay them All for their help but they refused our Angels the Cheadle bid us a Good trip and also refused even for Charlie Cheadle last words to us pass it on Ive heard of random acts of kind we were fortunate to have five people prove that All is Well in this part of the thank you and thank you Uljan Morrison fort doonesbury by Garry Trudeau doonesbury by Garry Trudeau if ;