News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Nos Falta Luz, meaning “we lack light” in Portuguese, is how those in Brazil are referring to the National Football League after the 38 minute blackout in Super Bowl XLVII.
The NFL and the United States are being mocked around the world for this massive technical screwup watched by billions.
It was like something that would happen in Kenya or something.
Penn State and Pittsburgh Steeler legend Franco Harris has launched a crusade to rehabilitate his former coach Joe Paterno, who was left stained by the Jerry Sandusky scandal, along with the school itself.
He is the front for a group of 15,000 PSU alumni called Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship who say the guilty party is not Penn State but Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile; State College police; Centre County Children and Youth Services; and the state Department of Public Welfare.
Well, the group has a point. It is about time that someone started making noise about the lack of an investigation by the appropriate authorities — including missing D.A. Ray Gricar — into the 1998 report of a molestation by Sandusky. And while JoePa was certainly no hero, he is not a villain either, and it is quite inappropriate to make him the face of the tragedy. Why would one be upset about an aging football coach’s failure to investigate when those charged to do investigations failed to investigate, especially considering that Paterno did pass on the report of the crime?
Penn State’s institutional role, however, can’t be ignored. School administrators all the way up to former President Graham Spanier covered up Sandusky’s crimes and the The Second Mile was certainly well-connected with PSU.
Even more damningly Spainer appears to have pointedly ignored at least one other accusation of child molestation involving a school celebrity — namely special education teacher John T. Neisworth.
Still, we are glad Franco’s group is stirring the pot and shining the light on the ignored heart of the scandal. Something really stinks in Happy Valley.
The Attempt To Rehabilitate Penn State
By William W. Lawrence Sr
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Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
House Republicans recently unveiled a legislative package aimed at reforming charter and cyber charter school funding in Pennsylvania, reports State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129)
The package includes bills that would:
• Create a commission to address inequities in the special education funding formula and determine how to fund charter and cyber charter special education students.
• Allow deductions for school district pension payments prior to calculating payments to cyber charter schools. This proposal could save $165 million for school districts over the next five years.
• Change the cyber charter funding formula for non-special education students by permitting school districts to deduct 50 percent of the costs of any cyber program they offer to their own resident students. It also would make additional deductions in calculating their payments to cyber charter schools based on costs that occur in a brick-and-mortar setting, such as extracurricular activities and district pupil services.
• Permit the Commonwealth to directly pay charter and cyber charter schools, as opposed to school districts. This is intended to address concerns made by charter and cyber charter schools about the timeliness of their payments.
• Lengthen the charter terms for predictable financing. The current three years initial term of a charter and five years for a renewal will be lengthened to five years for an initial term and 10 years for renewals. This will allow charter schools to more easily secure predictable financing for their operations.