The irony of the creationism bill

In 1897, Clarence A. Waldo, a Purdue professor of mathematics, was in Indianapolis when the General Assembly was considering a bill to mandate a way to calculate the value of pi, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle, that would yield a value of 3.2. Usually simplified as 3.14, pi is an infinite, never-repeating series of decimals; but that didn’t stop the House from passing the pi bill and sending it to the Senate.

The point of this nonsense isn’t clear, but the legislator who sponsored the bill was a timber merchant, and calculations of the amount of timber in a log would be tipped in favor of the seller if the value of pi were greater than it is. Horrified, Waldo assembled some senators and coached them on the mathematical facts of life. Although the bill made it to the Senate floor, it was shelved on a motion to postpone it indefinitely, thanks largely to Waldo.

Sadly, today’s Senate Education Committee, which voted 8-2 on Jan. 26 to approve a bill to let school boards require teaching “creation science,” was not influenced by anyone as expert and persuasive as Waldo. Some 115 years after the demise of the pi bill, Indiana still has legislators who think they have the power to decide matters of scientific truth. The bright spot is that there is not a scrap of evidence to support creation science as a teachable theory. That makes today’s equivalent of the pi bill self-nullifying, something that would surely have amused Waldo’s mathematical mind.

MICHAEL WALTER Auburn

Look homeward, Rep. Stutzman

Rep. Marlin Stutzman wants to eliminate the $2.78 per hour stipend given to poor senior citizens who act as foster grandparents to poor children.

Rather than bullying the most vulnerable of his constituents, perhaps he could find a way to opt out of the voluntary government subsidy program that has paid him and his family more than $1 million.

If he can’t figure that out, as he has said in the past, perhaps he could donate his check to the Foster Grandparents program. I believe it is doing more good for our community than Stutzman is.

MARY GOMES Fort Wayne

EACS a supportive community

East Allen Community Schools is a unique school district made up of wonderful children from all walks of life. Each of these communities has unique values. However, we all have important things in common – we value our families, our faith and our individual communities.

No decision that EACS makes will be overwhelmingly approved – just like no decision a town council or family makes will make everyone in that town or family happy. This is especially true when it involves change and, like in EACS, loss of money from the state through property tax caps and the lack of support for public education.

Indiana has laws that allow any community within a school system to block its improvements or improvements in its district.

How important is education? How would you like to be treated by the other communities when there is a need for your own children in your specific community in EACS?

Please support one another and sign the yellow petitions in the next couple of months in support of keeping local schools in each community.

TERRY JO LIGHTFOOT EACS school board

Public schools have successes, too

I was dismayed by the travels of Tony Bennett spelled out in “On the road again” (Jan. 22). Over the past four-plus years, we have heard the GOP governor, his cabinet and legislature talk about public school education reforms. What have they done to reform public education?

I cannot for the life of me think of one law they passed that helped Leo High School, the school I am most interested in, since I still have one child attending. What they have done is pass laws that funnel public funds to private schools, thus propping up a voting base of theirs.

Likewise, they passed laws to increase charter schools, therefore supplying out-of-state, for-profit corporations with Indiana tax dollars. While Bennett was traveling tooting his own horn, he should have stopped at Leo to find out what they are doing that made them Indiana’s only National Blue-Ribbon high school. Would it not have been wonderful if techniques used at Leo could also be used to help other Indiana schools achieve similar goals?

Bennett ignored a golden opportunity because he was too busy deciding how quickly to transfer tax money from public schools to private entities. Let’s keep our public funds for the public’s use and learn from the success stories already in front of us.

MARK V. LESE Fort Wayne