Is Education Department failing charter schools?
The Star Tribune is correct in recommending that charter school sponsors have greater oversight (editorial, July 2). But recent issues surrounding charter schools can't all be put on the doorstep of sponsors.
The Minnesota Department of Education bears some blame. Its school choice division is woefully understaffed. As an ex-board member of a charter school, I know personally how frustrating it was to call the MDE with questions and get an "I don't know" or "Get your attorney to interpret that legislation." Charter schools don't have staff attorneys. Nor, on shoestring budgets, can they afford to get outside attorney rulings on the many issues that come up over the course of a school year.
The fact is the MDE has relied on large school districts and their administrative staffs to do their job for them. Charter schools don't have that bureaucratic infrastructure and need the MDE to fulfill its legitimate role. Until the MDE steps up to the plate, charters will continue to work in the dark and later be chastised for breaking rules that didn't exist when their policies were put in place. That is not an effective way to run a school.
KATHY ROGERS, MINNETONKA
Authorizing the oil drill: sounds good to voters
Sen. Norm Coleman says "the fastest route to putting a dent in gas price increases is to begin reducing dependence on foreign oil by: authorizing oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of Florida" (Star Tribune, July 2).
Coleman is typical of laymen who think you can just send out a $400,000/day drill ship and start poking holes in the ocean floor. Our biggest off shore discovery is Chevron's Jack 2 well in the Walker Ridge area of the Gulf of Mexico. It will take years to define that field and each well runs about $100 million. The Minerals Management Service just accepted bids on several million acres offshore in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. Shortages of seismic capability and drilling rigs will delay production on those for years. We can open up more areas for bids, and it won't accomplish much. But it sounds good to voters.
ROLF E. WESTGARD, ST. PAUL; MEMBER, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PETROLEUM GEOLOGISTS
Dollar declines, and pump price rises
Froma Harrop's column about the declining value of the dollar and how that has contributed to the rise in gas prices ("Another thing your dollar can't buy: respect," July 2) makes perfect sense. The dollar has lost 30 percent against the Euro in the last eight years. If the dollar had remained as stable as the Euro we would now be paying only $2.80 per gallon instead of $4 -- which begs the question, why has the dollar declined so much? Could it have anything to do with the huge deficit spending of the Bush administration?
