Maine is so close to finally allowing public charter schools. We have been members of the educational staff of an extremely successful public charter school program in Massachusetts, and it is one of our greatest hopes to see the Legislature pass L.D. 1553, “An Act to Create a Public Charter School Program in Maine.”

To date, the bill has received tremendous support — bipartisan support. Only the final votes remain outstanding.

Forty other states already have public charter school legislation and have given schools, families and educators the freedom to follow the needs of their communities and populations.

My husband and I both worked for one such fortunate community on Popes Hill in Dorchester, Mass.

The Neighborhood House Charter School was a place for a disadvantaged district to feel empowered and proud.

A common misconception is that charter schools only pull the “cream of the crop” from public districts. This is not true. Charter schools, like those proposed by L.D. 1553, accept students by a lottery process.

Our neighborhoods in Maine’s cities and our rural communities deserve the ability to create their own futures and develop their own schools in accordance with state and federal guidelines, but also in harmony with the needs and strengths of the students and families they service.

Charter schools are held responsible to their communities. When they work, their charter is renewed. When they fail, their charter is revoked.

This is the straightforward measure of accountability lacking in our current public school system.

Maine’s current school system serves most students well. Yet too many students don’t receive the educational support they need. Public charter schools can help change that.

As Maine’s Legislature completes its important work, we hope that they will give strong, bipartisan support to public charter schools.

Andrea and Steve Berry

Portland

Constitution does provide for states to be supreme

Proponents of the concept of a national government that extinguishes state sovereignty, as expressed by Gary Caplan in a recent letter, should not only heed their own advice and read the Constitution in its entirety, but learn the principles behind it as well.

A state, by definition, is a sovereign government. In 1787, after months of discussion, deliberation and compromise, the states united under a compact known as the Constitution for the United States of America and established a federal government, the purpose of which was to protect the sovereignty, security, liberty and rights of the states and people.

The federal government, therefore, was created by the states; not the reverse.

The 10th amendment, which reserves to the states all powers not specifically granted to the federal government, was included in the Bill of Rights to address concerns of some states that the federal government could usurp state sovereignty.

James Madison reassured the people that the powers of the federal government “are few and defined” and the powers of the states “are numerous and indefinite.”

Article VI, which Mr. Caplan cites, is in fact consistent with the intended purpose of protecting the sovereignty and harmony of the states by setting them all on equal footing, as was the intent of the commerce clause, which has since been transformed into a weapon with which to beat the states and the people into submission.

Though unfortunate, it is understandable that people such as Mr. Caplan don’t understand our federal system, as the federal government established by the states in 1787 has since broken free from its constitutional restraints and mutated into a national government.

It rules over, rather than protects, the interests of the several sovereign states and the people.

Gary C. Foster

Gray

World’s end will arrive as equal-opportunity apocalypse

A preacher was wrong about May 21 being the end of the world. So, when is the world supposed to end?

If one man could predict the end of the world, who’s to say God even exists? We would not need a God if man himself was able to predict the apocalypse.

I agree with Tim LaHaye. There is a God and He is all-knowing. People can analyze the Bible and dissect it for centuries and never crack the code because there is no code to crack.

Just like any other book, the Bible can be picked apart by hundreds of people and analyzed, and everyone will decipher something differently and come to blind conclusions.

I whole-heartedly believe the Bible tells us just what we need to know to live a fit life, and within those instructions is a clear message that we will not know the exact day, let alone time, that Jesus will return.

And if the end of the world is near, why are we fretting about it? We all are living in this world together, we are going to go through whatever happens together.

I believe there is still hope for people, and that is the word we should be spreading.

Kristianna Benoit

Lisbon

Court decisions at odds on dancing vs. demonstrating

I write regarding Leonard Pitts’ June 8 column, “Assault on common sense,” about the interpretive dancers arrested at the Jefferson Memorial.

Is it just me, or do others find the ruling that “the government is not required to allow ‘the full range of free expression’ in a space built for ‘a solemn commemorative purpose’ ” in opposition to the recent decision that it’s OK for the Westboro Baptist Church (aka Fred Phelps’ family) to protest (certainly the extreme in a “full range of free expression”!) at a fallen soldier’s funeral?

Granted, a funeral is not held at a government-built space, but, if a memorial built for a patriot who died hundreds of years ago is considered suitable only for a “solemn commemorative purpose,” shouldn’t the church where a soldier who gave his life serving our country is being eulogized be considered at least equally so?

While I realize the above decisions came from two different courts, it just strikes me that the interpretation of the law can be so different when it comes to such things.

Deb Theriault

South Portland