Rebutting Times’ Stance on Trustees

* While some might agree with The Times’ ill-advised reflections and judgment on our Orange County Board of Education candidacies in its Feb. 20 editorial, let’s as a community review what Eric Woolery and I have accomplished during our four-year tenure as governing board members of the Orange County Department of Education.

Rather than accepting educational fads, we have and will always advocate back to basics, direct academic instruction, which focuses on imparting academic facts and knowledge through classroom instruction.

We want educational institutions to be in the business of primarily teaching knowledge to our children in the 21st century rather than political correctness.

We want our future leaders to climb the economic and educational ladders of life based on what is earned rather than what is given as a government handout.

In the end, we feel these time-honored principles are far superior to the current liberal pedagogical theories and educational factions that advocate behavioral-based instruction, and which unfortunately celebrate the divisive educational religions of diversity and multiculturalism.

Your editorial criticizes our role as publicly elected officials when we took bold public positions for our community’s families, historically disadvantaged minority groups, and parents when we spoke out against the one-size-fits-all policy of zero tolerance, daytime curfews in Orange County and special civil rights based on human behavior.

Finally, you also implied a distinct hostility toward us because we stood against the federal government usurping local control of education through President Clinton’s Goals 2000 and involuntary school-to-work government work force programs.

We understand that The Times’ editorial staff abhors anyone who dares speaks out against government monopolies, union leadership and bureaucracy and public policies that ignore the inalienable rights of parents.

We feel a responsibility to our constituents to speak the truth and ignore those like you who would intimidate unfairly through inaccurate public summaries of our records.

KEN WILLIAMS

Trustee, Orange County

Board of Education