We’re bought and sold

We’re bought and sold

A few years ago Republican John McCain and former Democratic Sen, Russ Finegold pushed through a bill to rein in some of the special interest money corrupting elections.

Immediately after passage the far right filed a law suit called “Citizens United” that said a corporation was the same as a citizen and should be able to give unlimited campaign contributions. All the lower courts ruled against it. Then the Supreme Court voted 5-4 in favor of this ridiculous suit. All 5 justices voting in favor are Republican appointees.

Now “Super PACs” are formed and can take unlimited money from the wealthy and corporations and spend it to influence elections as long as they say who donated. But wait, to get around this disclosure problem just form a 501 (c)4. This is not a PAC, it does not have to disclose where the money came from but can still use the money to influence elections. The 501 (c)4 can also donate its undisclosed money to a “Super PAC” which can use the money and only have to say it came from the 501 (c)4 so no one knows who paid for the political ads.

How do you form a 501 (c)4? Just form an anonymous shell corporation, register it in Delaware, appoint yourself as the sole director and vote to give the undisclosed money to the Super PAC. Does this sound like “money laundering” to you?

What the protestors on Wall Street and protesters all across our country are saying is our system of the super rich, corporations, financial institutions, and wall street buying our government for their gain and loss of the middle class will bring our country down.

We no longer have a democracy in government for all citizens. It has been purchased by the 1 percent.

Harold Householder, New Galilee, Pa.

Ursuline overlooked in story about AP courses

Your Oct. 16 story highlighting the worth of the Advanced Placement college credit program and the varied levels of participation within it among area school districts is valuable for your readers — as far as it went. It gave deserved attention to a marvelous incentive, which rewards academically motivated students on the university level before college admission. It provided community leaders concerned about our Valley’s quality of educational opportunities reason to promote the AP advantage for greater numbers of our best young minds in schools which could do more with this high-end instruction.

Ursuline High School, a college preparatory school of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, should be recognized as well for its extensive and highly successful use of the Advanced Placement program. With eight certified AP subject offerings, Ursuline exceeds every school on the multi-county roster of schools you listed for its number of AP opportunities. While there is a national 54 percent passing rate for high school students taking the necessary AP exam at the conclusion of their subject study, a statistic not included in your story, the average Ursuline student AP pass rate, guaranteeing college credit, is 86 percent.

Rev. Richard Murphy, Youngstown

The writer is president of Ursuline High School, Youngstown.

Salem has 13 courses

I read with in- terest the article on Advanced Placement courses in Sunday’s Vindicator. I wish that your reporters had ventured a little further south in their coverage and included Salem High School in their survey: SHS offers 13 AP courses. In addition, 210 out of our 635 students qualify for free lunch; our performance index for last year was 97.3; and 68 percent of the SHS Class of 2011 matriculated at a two-year or four-year college.

In the past 10 years Salem High School has added 10 AP courses (six in the past four years alone), and our AP students typically succeed both in their coursework and on their exams. After the 2011 testing, two of our students were designated as AP Scholars, and one student qualified as an AP Scholar with Distinction.

I side with those educators who see value in AP coursework: there aren’t many substitutes for rigor in preparing high school students for post-secondary studies. Students who took AP courses here almost invariably report that, as a result, they were well prepared for college. Furthermore, faculty members work continually to improve their instruction and to tweak the several curricula.

Given our demographics, I have no doubt that the number and quality of the AP courses that we offer contribute to the advantage our students seem to enjoy in gaining admission to selective colleges and universities .

Joe Shivers, Salem

The writer is principal of Salem High School.