Readers write for June 11, 2010

Minneapolis City Council President Barb Johnson's June 4 letter about the city's financial contributions and position in the recent lawsuit reads more like a fairy tale than history. It sounds good, but it is not reality.

The city has never voluntarily lived up to its public-safety pension obligations. It's a very old story. Our plans were established in the 1880s. Throughout history, our members always contributed what was required of them, but the city rarely did. By 1970, we had only $1.5 million in combined assets and scores of millions in liabilities. By 1980, with the plans only 10 percent funded, the Legislature mandated that the city pay its full obligation. With great investment returns in the 1980s and 1990s, the city was off the hook again by 2000. It paid nothing for several years. Then the stock market crashed and the city was obligated to contribute. The city didn't like that.

In 1995, the City Council and the mayor signed an agreement with us on how to determine pension benefits. For more than a decade, when the stock market was strong, they honored the agreement. But when times got tough, the city went to court to tear up the agreement. Contrary to Johnson's claims, the city did insist on cutting retiree benefits in the lawsuit. The city also asked for a "tax credit" from the plans. The idea of repayment by members came from the judge, not Johnson. Make no mistake: Johnson wants to renege on promises her predecessors made.

Throughout this process we have grown to appreciate what Native Americans have experienced in this country: Make a treaty with those in power, only to have that treaty broken. We now know what it means to speak with a forked tongue.

WALTER C. SCHIRMER, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, MINNEAPOLIS FIREFIGHTERS RELIEF ASSOCIATION

larry ward, president, Minneapolis Police Relief Association

The Star Tribune performed a useful public service in warning about cocaine mixed with antiworm medication ("Doctored cocaine raises alarm," June 8).

Each use of recreational drugs contributes to deadly consequences. American consumers of cocaine and other illegal drugs bear direct responsibility for Mexico's violent drug wars, for domestic gang activities and for reestablishing Afghanistan as the world's largest grower of opium. What will it take to recognize this poisonous reality?

Community-destroying drug wars in Mexico would not have the fuel to burn were it not for North American demand for the stuff. The Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan are largely funded through heroin sold in the West to the home countries of the American and coalition partners.

Perhaps one could construct a complicity scale to help bring some reality to the situation. One could estimate that every 10 drug users in America contribute to one death in Afghanistan. Or that for every 20 consumers of illegal drugs in North America, another village in northern Mexico is devastated.

There ought to be some formula that faces reality and places unequivocal individual guilt back where it belongs.

The deepest tainting of drug use lies in its complacent acceptance by too much of modern Western culture, while at the same time illegal drug consumers deny responsibility for the violent horror spots their own actions help create.

The Anoka-Hennepin School District is closing four schools "due to declining enrollment" ("Finality for some Anoka-Hennepin schools," June 9). However it's worded, the issue is funding and how to meet the shortfall in operating funds. I was also struck by the story about Twin Cities Academy ("A charter school that's succeeding," June 1) and the school's approach to teaching, which is "old school, with emphasis on achievement and accountability." Twin Cities Academy has 114 students in grades nine through 12 and 198 students in grades six through eight. Not only does the school have an effective approach to teaching, it also has an effective teacher-to-student ratio.

Having a smaller student-to-teacher ratio is something we've heard for many years from the academic community. The rationale has always been that regardless of the teaching method, teachers need to spend the appropriate amount of time with each student for that student to understand and learn.

It seems to me that declining enrollment is exactly the reason to keep these schools open.

To make that happen, we the voters have to open our pocketbooks and vote the schools the money they need to stay open and hire the teachers to staff them. Instead of being self-centered, we need to be altruistic and invest in our kids and in our state's future.

KEN BARR, ELK RIVER

I just recently returned from visiting my son, who is teaching English in South Korea, and as a retired educator I requested and was allowed to observe a classroom teacher instructing an evening English course. What struck me immediately was that her teaching methods were identical to the methods that we apply in our classrooms. This only reinforced my belief that it is family and social values that have the greatest affect on students achievement. The students that I observed were sent by their parents to improve their skills. There was no evidence of any high-tech instructional devices or futuristic lesson planning that motivated or entertained the students.

In America, we simply put much less value on education and the hard work that it takes to achieve academic success. Parents today expect teachers to perform miracles on students who have been raised on TV and computer games. To blame schools for our students' low achievement is totally unfair.