– The 2009-2010 Portland high school SAT results (Deering, Portland High and Casco Bay) reported in the Feb. 21 Press Herald are appalling.

The students who took the test as juniors are graduating in June (most of them, anyway).

More than 60 percent of them do not meet Maine state standards in math, and more than 50 percent do not meet the standards in science. Reading and writing are not as bad but certainly are not impressive.

The standards are supposed to measure whether or not students are prepared for the next step in their journey — work, post-secondary education, military service, etc.

Clearly most of them are not ready. How can we be graduating students who are so woefully unprepared?

As a parent of an elementary student and as taxpayer in the city of Portland, those results are completely unacceptable. Our job as the adults in this city (parents, teachers, administrators) is to make sure that our children are prepared for whatever they chose to do after high school.

As a community, we seem to be failing miserably.

Leanne Walker

Portland

Quest for political civility falls short from the start

I was shocked by the front page story in the Press Herald Feb. 23 indicating Sen. Susan Collins said we all, but especially public officials, must endeavor to be civil and our leaders must “set a higher standard.” The senator is being hypocritical in saying that.

Over a period of three years I wrote the senator 14 letters on a subject that not only has a horrendous negative effect on my retirement but also for thousands of other Maine citizens. Her idea of a “higher standard” was to completely ignore me.

Oh, I got a standard computer-generated letter from some staff member telling me what a wonderful job the senator was doing, but I never got a single question answered, and all of my requests to meet the senator were ignored. Is that being civil?

Her idea of the “art of compromise” is truly the art of stonewalling. A member of her staff did eventually call me, but he did not tell the truth about what he and the senator were going to do and never made a promised return call.

The senator said that “re-election is the ultimate reward,” but what she meant was it is the ultimate goal. She, like the rest, will say whatever it takes to get elected but then will do little or nothing for their constituents until the next election rolls around; then the empty promises will come out once again.

Remember, this is a woman who said she would only be a two-term senator, so let’s hope when her current third term is up the voters of Maine send her home so she can then be ignored by her replacement like she has done to so many Maine citizens over the past 14 years.

Gary Phillips

Wells

I was interested to read the article by Dennis Hoey reporting Sen. Susan Collins’ remarks at the Cumberland Club. The topic was a call to members of Congress “to strive for a higher standard of political discourse” and increased civility.

As reported, it came “a day after an announcement that former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton will be honorary co-chairmen of a new national institute to promote civility in political discourse.”

I hope Gov. LePage will do Maine the honor of becoming a charter member.

Ann Patch

Cape Elizabeth

How can Falmouth schools save? Cut pay, teachers

Aid dries up; schools brace for shortfalls. If you spend the time and do the homework necessary, this whole story is the educator’s version of Chicken Little: “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”

There’s always plenty of money to educate the children, we just continuously waste it on overstaffing.

Philadelphia just laid off 130 police and firefighters because their fellow union members wouldn’t take a 5 percent cut in compensation to keep everyone on the job.

In Falmouth, we have 21 excess teachers based on Superintendent Barbara Powers’ calculation, at a cost of $1.5 million tax dollars. We have more than 40 too many teachers based on a national standard, at a waste over $3 million tax dollars.

We pay our top 100 teachers $500,000 more than Cape Elizabeth pays its top 100 teachers. Besides the fact that Cape outperforms us on SATs, we get no return on that waste of tax dollars.

When School Board member Chris Murry Jr., made an impassioned plea for members of the public at the January workshop to come up with ways to save money for the Falmouth School System, I stood up and stated, “Let’s match the pay that Cape uses. We’ll save at least $500,000.” My suggestion was met with deafening silence.

Michael Doyle

Falmouth

State shouldn’t back off on tougher seat belt law

Recently there has been a suggestion from one of our legislators in Augusta, Sen. Ron Collins, R-Wells, that Maine’s recently amended seat belt law (making not wearing a seat belt reason for an officer of the law to stop the driver) be changed back to making the offense a secondary violation, enforceable only if another violation is witnessed first.

This change has been defended by its supporters as a matter of personal freedom, having no consequence for anyone but he or she who chooses not to wear a belt. In fact, like many choices we make each day, the effect falls on not just ourselves, but others as well.

By the testimony of a spokesman for the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, the rate of usage of seat belts has risen in our state, enhanced, in part, by the passage of the seat belt law.

To turn back the clock would, inevitably and unfortunately, lead to more injury and death in our driving population.

Such injury will also lead to greater costs for automobile insurance, which we are all required to carry. I would not argue the right to freedom of choice but, as is often the case, along with freedom comes responsibility.

I would object to people who do not wear a seat belt saddling the rest of us with higher costs for insurance. Perhaps the compromise is to have those not wearing a seat belt waive the expectation that the insurance company pay for their injuries if an accident were to occur.

Finally, I wonder why, with all the important work that needs to be done in Augusta, our legislators are spending time on something like this which has to be way down on the priority list.

It certainly raises a question in my mind about the judgment of Sen. Collins and his time management skills.

Theodore Brown

Warren

Facts on power production show wind has tiny effect

Electricity suppliers in Maine are required by law to provide fact sheets called “uniform disclosure label.” The Central Maine Power fact sheet that recently arrived at my residence shows the following contributors to our electric power supply:

Hydro, 30.2 percent; natural gas, 29.7; nuclear, 25; coal, 8.6; oil, 3.9; wind, 0.5; other (biomass, solar, etc.), 2.1.

The promoters of wind power and other so called “green energy” sources use “reduction of foreign oil imports” as one of the justifications for their product.

The above data show that the amount of our energy supplied by oil (foreign or otherwise), is so far down the list that building windmills in Maine (or any other part of the country) is a waste of our money.

This waste is compounded by the fact that wind energy production can be “justified” only by large taxpayer subsidies.

Engineering economic analysis shows that wind power as an energy source is prohibitively expensive, despite the fact that the wind itself is “free.”

Allen Bingham

Scarborough

Maine joins expensive suit when it shouldn’t have

U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson in Florida declared the new health care law void. The state of Maine joined 25 other plaintiff states in this suit Dec. 20, 2010, at the estimated cost of $400,000. This lawsuit, like so many, represents a full employment act for the legal community.

There will be appeals. There will be decisions. This will eventually work its way up to the Supreme Court. A decision will be rendered. And what are the benefits? A ton of billable hours for the legal community.

Such is the American way in this litigious society. And what does the state of Maine get out of this legal lovefest for its entry fee? Another bill for the additional legal work.

The total coast will undoubtedly balloon to much more than the initial estimate. So again what do we get? Nothing but a “feel-good” moment for the governor.

I say let the other states squander their money on this useless exercise. Any eventual ruling by the Supreme Court will cover the entire country. Let the other states, in their wisdom, pursue this if they want to. I think the state of Maine has much better uses the money than to chase this exercise in legal posturing.

Frank Wright

Cape Neddick

Online comments need more discretion, refereeing

I’m not exactly sure where the disconnect occurs between The Press Herald’s “Terms of Use Policy” for its online comment section and the actual comments, but it does occur, and it’s disheartening.

So instead of pondering where exactly that fault lies, I’ll make a plea to the commenting community directly.

Strive to stay on the topic at hand. If an article is about environmental policy, please, don’t go off on a tirade about immigration unless your digression is a well-thought-out corollary to the initial discussion. Just so we’re clear, a single sentence like: “Yeah, just like immigration,” is not a well-thought-out digression.

Avoid needlessly inflammatory rhetoric. If I wanted to hear about Nazis on a daily basis, I’d turn on the History Channel. Also, avoid attitudes and postures best left to the playground, such as “we won, get over it,” “he should be beaten with a birch branch” and the recent trend of name calling.

Next, avoid using ALL CAPS. It’s unnecessary and tends to make even a well-thought-out response look immature. Take the time to rephrase, or substitute italics for if emphasis, if needed.

Finally, make use of the flag function (and request the paper add an “off topic” or “digression” button) to point out comments that are derailing the conversation.

There are often wonderful responses from people on all sides of an issue, but they are also often buried among the muck.

Eric Brokofsky

Westbrook