Anyone who can’t understand why wages in this area are low, good-paying jobs are lacking and so many of the area people live below the poverty line only has to look to the hockey parents at Lisbon High School for the answer: Extracurricular activities have been placed ahead of education.

Apparently, over the past two years these parents have been so busy that they have not read a newspaper or listened to the broadcast news. What else would explain their ignorance of No Child Left Behind, a program mandated by the federal government that attempts to ensure all children get a quality education.

Unfortunately, the state and federal mandates, coupled with the priorities of parents having the same mindset of those in Lisbon, are resulting in many excellent teachers leaving the profession.

I would point out to those parents that an overwhelming majority of outstanding high school athletes are honor students, many at the top of their class.

I would suspect that the military officer candidate who stated he would have found those standards tough in high school probably has gained maturity and discipline since enlisting, helping him to live up to the high expectations of military service. After all, I don’t think any branch of the service would want soldiers, with perhaps their lives on the line in a nighttime firefight in Iraq, along with the noise, confusion, tracer rounds and darkness amplifying their predicament, being led by an officer who could not pass six subjects.

Robert E. Macdonald, Lewiston

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