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To those recent letter writers who complained about the never-ending torrent of political campaigning on TV ("Can't take much more of this," Oct. 15), there is a solution: a U.S. constitutional amendment limiting such campaigning to the 13 weeks preceding our November general elections. Several countries have restrictions limiting campaign lengths — among them Canada.

The adoption of such an amendment will be vigorously opposed in the name of free speech by those who profit from long campaigns — most notably 24-hour news channels, advertising firms, pollsters and campaign consultants. These people in satisfying their greed are plunging our democracy into the political factionalism our nation's founders so feared.

Americo Del Calzo, Edina

It was inevitable, I suppose, that Republicans would jump on the news of the drop in National Assessment of Educational Performance scores by Minnesota students as evidence that Gov. Tim Walz and Democrats in the Minnesota Legislature have failed our schools ("Test score slide hits state hard," Oct. 25). What they conveniently ignore is that no state posted gains in test scores, including those where schools remained open during much of the pandemic. Further, as the chart on the front page of the Oct. 25 paper shows, our state's math scores in both fourth and eighth grade remained above the national average while fourth grade reading scores fell slightly below the national average and in eighth grade were identical.

Sadly, because the actual data doesn't support the chosen narrative of Minnesota Republicans, they have chosen to ignore it. We can only hope that the majority of voters are more interested in the facts than the political spin.

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Go figure, researchers will be looking at why standardized student test scores dropped during the period spanning the COVID pandemic. Understanding a couple of learning principles goes a long way to explain the decline in performance. Time on task and guided practice are two such fundamental elements that impact learning. Without additional research, one could safely predict a significant improvement in performance now that students are at school for a good part of the day being taught by professionals. We should, as a result of these diminished test scores, place an increased value on quality schools and teachers.

Pete Boelter, North Branch

Will someone please listen to Richard Greelis? ("Tell us again: Who's in charge of Mpls. police?" Opinion Exchange, Oct. 26.) Adding more bureaucratic layers will not solve anything!