Mailbag: Our high school graduates are unprepared for the work force

New York doesn’t have cool restaurants overlooking the Pacific Ocean like Laguna Beach’s Montage or the Rooftop, or Huntington Beach’s legendary Duke’s. And it doesn’t have a harbor with the laid-back vibe and luxury yachts of Newport.

Heck, New York doesn’t even have a Hobie Surf Shop.

But let’s face it: New York is, in effect, the capital of America. The art, the theater, Greenwich Village, Wall Street, Central Park, the Guggenheim Museum, New York is a plethora (that means “a lot,” I think) of outstanding symbols of intelligence, sophistication and influence.

Therefore, I was shocked (shocked!) to read a recent article in the city’s leading newspaper about the state of education in America. Here, basically, is what the article said:

Students all over the country are graduating with high school diplomas. What that diploma should signify is that the students are smart and stuff. It should mean that they know math and language to a reasonably high level, they are ready to do college work, they are ready to function adequately on a job, and (surely this is a basic, national defense minimum!) they can get into the Army.

All too often, not so, said the article.

Nationwide, not even one-half of 12th graders are prepared to do college work. And one-fifth can’t meet the standards of the Army.

Now, here’s the alarming part: The article ended by saying America is losing out to countries “…that do better jobs of giving their citizens the skills they need.”

It’s that word “giving” that’s scary. As I see it, students get an education; I don’t see how anyone can give it to them. Students get an education by going to class, listening to the teacher, doing their homework and studying for tests.

It’s like surfing. No one gives surfers waves. Surfers catch them.

(Right?)

Maybe New York needs a Hobie Shop.

Steve Davidson

Newport Beach

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If ISIS had killed as many we’d do something

I’m trying to make sense of all the shootings on American soil since the Sandy Hook massacre three years ago. That’s when a deranged young man walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and killed 20 children, six adults and himself.

President Barack Obama is reported to have said the senseless killings that day were the low point of his presidency. He vowed to change our culture of guns but, since that fateful day, there have been at least 1,042 mass shootings, with gunmen killing at least 1,312 people and wounding 3,764 more.

If ISIS had inflicted the same number of casualties here at home, there would be calls for war from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other in Washington. So why not a domestic war on mass shootings?

It’s called democracy, and it isn’t always pretty. The Dec. 2 shootings in San Bernardino should remind us all how cruel majority rule can be sometimes.

My hope is we never forget those who have been lost to crazed gunmen coast to coast. If we ever do, you can start counting the days until our American way of life is lost forever.

Denny Freidenrich

Laguna Beach