Bangor Daily News, Oct. 31
The need for a fresh look at the way sports are played in Maine high schools and middle schools should be raised delicately. Without a few specific examples of boorish behavior by athletes or parents pointing to a reason for such an examination, many people associated with sports … would feel defensive when a special statewide board convenes to reform the current sports systems.

Robert Cobb, dean of the College of Education at UMaine, however, can point to problems that will seem uncomfortably familiar to parents. … He and Duke Albanese, a former education commissioner and co-chair, with Dr. Cobb, of the university’s new Coaching Maine Youth to Success study, also noticed a drop in the number of teachers coaching as expectations for their classroom performance have increased, resulting in a drop in the quality of sports instruction. And they note an increase in community sports programs that are, in some instances, becoming a year-round minor league for major aspirations, sometimes to the detriment of the players.

Followers of the sports pages will recall plenty of national examples of teenagers with de facto agents and mega-shoe contracts, high-pressure leagues for pre-pubescents and parents with control issues. What is blatant nationally often is subtle locally but is nevertheless there. The question for the study is this: What should sports programs in Maine middle and high schools look like to produce the best results for the whole student?

The guide is the 1998 Promising Futures document, a set of principles that tries to improve education by establishing standards for safety in schools, for learning opportunities, values, equity, coherence of curriculum and other measures. Doing the same for sports, Messrs. Cobb and Albanese hope, would give communities a means for improving their perspective of local

sports. …

The youth study has nothing to do with feel-good programs, where everyone (and no one) is a winner but very much to do with encouraging more students to gain the benefits sports offers …

Expanding the possibility of what sports can offer students is not simple; in some ways, it will be harder than academic reform because so much more of it takes place outside of school and it treads on turf not known to welcome public scrutiny. …

A successful attempt at adding new perspective to a culture desperately enamored of sports and winning, it needs barely be said, would make UMaine a national leader in this field. Not that it is overly competitive or anything.
Problems at home
Carroll County Times, Westminster, Md., Nov. 4
Reaching out to other countries and offering assistance when they are in need is an important part of American foreign policy. Just as important, however, is reaching out to help those in need right here.

About 32 percent of American families experienced some problems putting enough food on the table last year, according to a report issued last week from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. …

America should not have 108 million families living in fear of where their next meal may be coming from or wondering where the money will be coming from to pay for food. …

The Bush administration needs to devote some additional effort to finding solutions to the problems which are impacting Americans. The loss of jobs. The high cost of health care. A struggling economy. …
Putin and the oligarchs
The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Nov. 3
When Vladimir Putin took over as Russia’s president almost four years ago, people inside and outside the country wondered whether he was capable of standing up to the so-called oligarchs.

These well-connected tycoons, who had become rich buying up former state enterprises at rock-bottom prices, bankrolled the campaigns of Boris Yeltsin Mr. Putin’s predecessor and patron – and exercised an inordinate influence over Mr. Yeltsin. Mr. Putin was largely an unknown quantity, and there was plenty of reason to question his ability to gain control over his own government.

Those concerns now seem quaint. The recent arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia, on tax evasion and fraud charges completes Mr. Putin’s campaign against the oligarchs.

Yet this is not an occasion to celebrate. The president’s methods have been increasingly heavy-handed, and there is every reason to worry about what they augur for Russia’s future. …

… One obvious reason for Russia’s economic and political fragility is that it has spent hundreds of years under arbitrary rulers first the czars, then the commissars – who used their unlimited powers to crush all opposition. What Russia needs is a break from that sorry tradition, not a return to it.


Illegal immigration
Chicago Tribune, Nov. 1
If you had wondered about the scope of illegal immigration in the U.S., the federal government provided a broad hint last week by arresting approximately 300 undocumented workers at 60 Wal-Mart stores across the country.

The number of arrests is not the big deal; there are an estimated 8 million illegal immigrants in the country. It was the target that made news: Wal-Mart, the country’s biggest retailer and employer, not some two-lawnmower landscaping. …

A workable immigration accord has to address both the supply and demand sides of the illegal immigrant labor market …

The U.S. has the right to deport people here illegally. But unless the underlying structure is a workable, realistic immigration system, raids like those against Wal-Mart won’t make life easier for migrants or American employers.