Morning, folks.\u00a0 Here’s our weekly wrap of the opinions shaping this weekend’s breakfast conversations around the North Country.<\/p>\n
The Glens Falls Post-Star<\/a> is arguing that it should be easier to fire incompetent teachers.\u00a0 They cite a recent case in Queensbury, where dismissing a Spanish teacher required a lengthy process that cost $340,000.<\/p>\n It shouldn’t be very easy to remove a teacher. School boards and administrators have been known to capriciously target unpopular or unconventional instructors….<\/p>\n But given that the sole focus of our educational system should be to provide a safe and healthy learning environment for our children in which to learn, it shouldn’t be so difficult to remove incompetent or inappropriate teachers either.<\/p>\n The process needs to be fair to the employee. But it shouldn’t make so many allowances toward the employee as to be unfair to his employers, the children, or the citizens footing the bill.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Plattsburgh Press-Republican<\/a> looks at the history of the debate over a “rooftop highway” running between Plattsburgh and Watertown, and concludes that this may be an idea whose time has come and gone.<\/p>\n While the Rooftop Highway is a great idea in theory, it is unlikely to secure the needed federal funding in these days of budget constraints.<\/p>\n The effort was started back in different times with different priorities and different resources. There have been 50 years of lethargy on the proposal for a reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Watertown Daily Times<\/a> is weighing the value of an informed electorate, pointing to a recent poll that showed a lot of Americans woefully ignorant about the basic tenets of their own government.<\/p>\n Three out of 10 did not know the president headed the executive branch, while even more \u2014 40 percent \u2014 did not know that the legislative branch makes law. Just 55 percent knew it was the role of the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of laws.<\/p>\n Only 42 percent of respondents answered all three questions correctly.<\/p>\n (We know In Box readers would ace this quiz…)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n