Local students deserve praise

The News Virginian
Published: May 15, 2008

A Thumbs-up, thumbs-down assessment of newsmakers here and beyond:
Kyle Head aspires to be a filmmaker, and already he has an audience and an award. The Robert E. Lee High School senior directed a 30-second video that seeks to steer his peers away from predators stalking the Internet. It features a teenage boy sitting slouched and alone on a bench in Staunton’s Montgomery Hall Park as menacing figures pass through the frame in the foreground and a narrator warns: “It starts with a simple chat. Then leads to a name. And eventually, child abduction.” One viewer called the clip “graphic, effective and gripping.” Of course, this was not just any viewer. It was state Attorney General Bob McDonnell, who Tuesday telephoned Head and two pals, fellow Lee senior Jonathan Fisher, who assisted in the direction of the video, and Shelburne Middle School eighth-grader Jeremiah Eckard, to tell them they won the statewide Youth Internet Safety Contest. Their video captured 60 percent of 3,044 online votes in the competition. McDonnell’s office sponsored the contest, which drew participation from more than 200 schools statewide. The aim was for students to educate their young peers about the Internet’s perils. “Who better to inform students about safety than students,’’ McDonnell spokesman David Clementson said. The local boys’ work will appear this summer on cable television throughout the commonwealth. Give McDonnell and his Youth Internet Safety Advisory Committee credit for an innovative and intelligent approach to educating kids about a growing threat. More important, bravo to Head and his team for an impressive and eminently worthy work. We are sure we have neither seen nor heard the last of this talented trio.
In a country flush these days with indicators of decline, none is significantly more disturbing than America’s flagging literacy levels. A fourth of Americans cannot address an envelope correctly. Less than a third of eighth-graders read at their grade level. And a recent federal Department of Education study says that reading comprehension has not improved among low-income students in the last seven years despite an annual investment of $1 billion in education under President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. That demonstrates that simple money is not sufficient to turn aside the trend. The real solutions are found right here in Waynesboro, specifically at Berkeley Glenn Elementary School and, more specifically, in people such as Alycia Knicely. Among her innovations are reading celebrations, such as a reading on the farm day. Knicely’s reward is simple and abundant: “Just seeing the kids’ eyes when it clicks.” On Tuesday, Waynesboro Public Schools provided a bonus, naming Knicely the district’s Teacher of the Year. Clearly, it clicks with Knicely as well as her students. On her bulletin board is a statement that reads, “Books are the key to unlock the world.” The world, especially that portion of it occupied by Americans, can use people like Alycia Knicely.
Swelled by its prerequisite pork, a farm bill is at last on its way to President Bush’s desk and, because of overwhelming bipartisan backing, he already has been disarmed of the veto pen he had repeatedly threatened to brandish. The $303-billion legislative Leviathan leaves in place farm subsidies, although it provides income guidelines for recipients, $750,000 in farm money, $500,000 nonfarm. These are limits in the fashion of those abided by parasites, whose blood intake halts when the sucker’s body is filled to the bursting point. Bush wanted an adjusted gross income limit of $200,000. Lawmakers in both parties cowered in numbers sufficient to secure a veto override, proving anew that their sucking from the public vein knows no limit.