The Cleburne Eagle News (Cleburne, Tex.), Ed. 1 Thursday, October 3, 2013 Page: 4 of 10
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Johnson County and Cleburne Area Newspapers and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Johnson County Historical Commission.
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By: Joel Victory
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By: Wendell Dempsey
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PLAZ
s Sheame Campang 5"
Now Playin'
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It’s True What They Say -Best
Laid Plans of Mice and Men....
Let us continue to pray, work, sacrifice and do whatever it
takes to protect the freedoms guaranteed in our constitution.
September 13 th -
October 5th
SPOTLIGHT ON
EDUCATION
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merit-based
systems are all
the rage
817-202-0600
plaza-theatre.com
e.
Here are a few thoughts written in an effort to improve
education and at the same time simplify it.
The purpose of education should be to offer equal access
and reasonable accommodation’s to a good education.
Those involved in educations should have the say in what
to teach, which classroom to place a student in, and how
to deal with issues that come up. The educators should be
able to decide what course of help students need and how
far special access is to be taken.
Students are not the same. They are not equal in the speed
they learn, or the amount they retain. Some are better
in math, while others shine in English or geometry. No
amount of government intervention will ever make one
size that fits every student. This is impossible, and the
expense to attempt this is drowning the entire education
system in America. Just as students are different, so are
school districts in number of students and teachers as well
as the available funds to spend in their district. No amount
of laws will ever make it right to require the same avail-
able dollars for each and every school district. This was
not a part of equal education in America. The original in-
tention of laws on equal education was to offer access to
children to learn. It was never intended to require schools
to spend in all directions to accommodate all problems
imaginable. The courts have made a mockery of educa-
tion by their self-evaluations of how much they can read
into laws from the past. These same courts have decided
that the schools should pay for extremely high costs for
some students that receive very little benefits, if any at
all, from attending school. Regardless of how some may
object to this line of reasoning, it is truthful. The courts
failed to consider the disruption of the other hundreds of
students and the added cost, or slowed classes from such
adventures. The courts have overstepped their boundar-
ies with their extreme push for equal service for every-
one. The failure of such reasoning is that the judges never
consider the damage they are forcing on the other people
involved to accommodate this one. This is not what equal
treatment means, never was, and should never be consid-
ered that way.
Education is one of the most important ways to improve
the future, but legal aggression has made the job almost
impossible. Courts, governments and politics has cre-
ated the same fiasco in education as in everyday life. The
sheer cost of following regulations, laws, mandates has
crippled the education system in America.
What the states, or federal government doesn’t compli-
cate, the local school administration does.
The ease that administrators spend money that supports
the educational process amazes me. Many of these ad-
ministrators act like a child in a candy store. They want
anything someone offers, and everything they see or here
about. The results of such poor decisions is easy to see.
There has been some improvements in education in Texas
the past decade, but there has been tremendous expens-
es in that direction. I remember the old business axiom
K.I.S.S., a very useful idea nowadays, but never consid-
ered. K.I.S.S. stood for Keep It Simple Stupid!!! A great
saying to whisper to all the administrators of our schools.
Go back to teaching a basic foundation for learning. Con-
trol the exposure in early school years of the computer
and other electronic devices, teach the kids to read, write
cursive and do their math tables. Create an environment
that develops passion for learning, rather than contempt
for school. Keeping it Simple may be the way to over-
come the roadblocks in today’s education.
All the spending for electronic devices have grown out
of control in almost every school district in Texas. Ft.
Worth’s newest bond election proposal is asking for 10’s
of millions of dollars for advancing the electronics sec-
tion of education. The fallacy of such promotions is the
inability of administrators to understand that they are kill-
ing the intellectual development of our children. They are
force feeding them electronic wizardry, instead of a solid
development of thinking and reasoning skills. These ad-
ministrators still do not understand that these computers
can only follow directions. Someone has to make the in-
put for the machines to give an answer. If the children
have no idea how to think through a process and as-
semble a precise question to ask for a certain answer, the
computer can do nothing. The computer is a great tool to
be added and used after a solid basic education is in place
with every child, not the one and only path to improving
our children’s education, as many educators think. Keep
it Simple and our children will reward us with social and
intellectual skills that will allow them to be productive
parts of the future.
If we really want to improve education the correct ap-
proach may be to restrict the use of electronic gadgetry,
stress fundamental education learning skills, and go back
to reading for learning and pleasure in our elementary
school. Reading is the bottom foundation for learning.
All other subjects flow through reading. Developing a
passion for reading in school kids is the road to adven-
ture, success, and imagination. It develops thinking and
reasoning for that child’s future and makes mastering the
advanced subjects so much easier. Reading and cursive
writing has now become almost extinct in Texas educa-
tion, and helped create the major step in the “dumbing
down of our children through current education meth-
ods”. If the doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.!!
Your comments are welcome. You can contact me at :
817-925-3149 or wgdemp@gmail.com
817-645-6800 501. Nolan River Rd, Cleburne 866-810-6800
www.victorymvesJmentstrategies.com
LIFE CARE PLANNING
BY SANDRA W. REED
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. INVESTING
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“It’s deja vu all over again,” Yogi Berra reportedly said as he
watched Yankee teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris
smack back-to-back home runs for the umpteenth time.
Americans are experiencing deja vu all over again, too. Sure,
the prospect of another fiscal showdown doesn’t electrify a
crowd like a couple of major league home runs. All the same,
investors’ response to the possibility the U.S. government
might partially shut down on October 1 was muted. Some
U.S. stock markets gave back a little for the week; others
moved higher. All remained up year-to-date.
So, are investors confident America’s elected officials will
do the right thing? Or, have they become complacent? Are
they so accustomed to debate and delay that it doesn’t faze
them? According to The Economist:
“[U.S.] Federal spending comes in two types: dis-
cretionary which must be authorized every year; and
mandatory which is set in law. These labels are confus-
ing because much discretionary spending is anything
but: it includes funding for the justice system and de-
fense. Since 1976 Congress has required itself to pass
a dozen appropriations bills annually to cover this
stuff. Unfortunately, it has missed its deadline every
year since 1994. To keep the lights on it has resorted to
temporary resolutions to finance discretionary spend-
ing at existing levels until agreement can be reached,
sometimes after a brief pause for effect.”
As it turns out, government funding has expired 10 times
since 1981, and the government has closed down each time.
Nine of the 10 closures occurred over weekends so they had
limited impact. The tenth lasted for 21 days during 1995 and
1996. We should learn how this round will turn out pretty
quickly.
merit-based systems are all the rage... One definition for
‘merit’ in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is: Character or
conduct deserving reward, honor, or esteem (also: achieve-
ment). If someone performs well, we want to reward them.
If they don’t, well, maybe we won’t.
Merit-based systems are everywhere. For companies try-
ing to retain top talent, recognition and rewards systems are
essential. Almost 83 percent of employers use merit raises,
according to the Compdata BenchmarkPro 2012 survey. In
2012, the average worker pay increase for merit was 2.7 per-
cent. That’s expected to increase to 2.8 percent for 2013.
Corporations aren’t the only ones who tie pay to perfor-
mance. In some school districts, teachers’ income is linked
to student performance, and about 20 percent of state aid for
undergraduate students is tied to achievement in the United
States. Under the Affordable Care Act, the income of public
and private hospitals will be tied to performance measures
such as patient outcomes and cost containment. Earlier this
year, hospitals in New York City negotiated with physicians
unions to link doctors pay to performance, too. A study pub-
lished in The Journal of the American Medical Association
in September found providing financial incentives to clini-
cians for achieving better health outcomes was effective
over the short term.
One tricky thing about merit-based pay systems is deciding
how to measure performance. According to The Wall Street
Journal, CEO pay may be measured against a variety of
benchmarks:
“Compensation awarded to CEOs of 300 U.S. compa-
nies rose a median 3.6% to $10.1 million, the analysis
found. The total includes salary and annual bonuses,
plus the value of restricted stock and stock options
at the time they were granted... CEO pay increased
slightly faster than profit which rose 2.1% at the com-
panies surveyed. But, it lagged behind the median
14% increase in total shareholder return for those
companies which includes share-price movement and
dividends.”
The article reported investor influence exercised through
‘say-on-pay’ votes - annual non-binding votes on CEO pay
- has inspired greater consistency in CEO pay. In fact, for
the first time in the history of the survey cited, the largest
piece of the CEO pay puzzle was linked to financial or stock
performance.
Weekly Focus - Think About It
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without
loss of enthusiasm.”
-Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
We are pleased to announce that at the end of August, Joel IV
opened a new LPL office, named IV Wealth Management, at
609 N. Main Street, Cleburne.
The phone number is 817-774-2725. Kelly and Jennifer con-
tinue to be his familiar assistants. The coffee pot is always
on, please go by and see them.
Meanwhile, we welcome our new, well trained, diligent as-
sistants, Jacque and Meagan who look forward to serving
you.
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CLEBURNE EAGLE NEWS OCTOBER 3 2013 PAGE 4
( CLEBURNE ' BUSINESS 1
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My practice and this column are all about planning. The
experience of a long-term friend in caring for her husband,
now deceased, is a reminder that the best laid plans can go
awry. And when they do, it is the road next taken that makes
all the difference.
Adam and Tracy, both brilliant - he an anthropologist and
she a psychologist -were sophisticated and highly educat-
ed. Adam spent a distinguished career as a college profes-
sor following completion of a doctoral dissertation from
research he conducted while they lived in Bolivia. They
wrote and published a textbook together. They raised two
extraordinary children.
And they planned their lives. They sought employment
where they wanted to live. He loved the mountains, she
the ocean, so they spent one stint in New Mexico, another
in Miami. Adam ran and biked and worked out diligently,
keeping himself in shape. They chose a retirement location
and moved there.
His taking care of mind and body did not protect Adam from
an inherited gene linked to a condition which had resulted in
family members dying young from multiple strokes. When
his turn came, Adam’s first stroke was massive.
Tracy and Adam thought they had planned for this con-
tingency. After all, they weren’t ignorant of the familial
medical condition that could bring disaster. They had wills,
financial and medical powers of attorney, do not resusci-
tate and do not take extraordinary measures orders in place.
They thought they were covered. Adam had made it clear
that he did not want to live robbed of mental and physical
faculties.
The problem was this: the hospital personnel hooked up
life-support before determining Adam’s wishes - not an un-
common occurrence. When Adam came out of coma he
was severely impaired. He couldn’t walk, talk or speak.
He had to relearn who Tracy and his children were, but that
regained knowledge was only intermittent. He learned to
talk, but his sentences were garbled and his meanings often
unclear. What he understood was spotty. He learned to fake
it so well that even Tracy was not sure what he got and what
he didn’t.
But here’s the kicker. Adam who had signed those docu-
ments saying he wanted no extraordinary measures to save
his life, would tell Tracy how glad he was to be alive and
thank her for saving him. Did he understand what his life
had become? Tracy wasn’t sure.
What Adam’s living in that condition did require was more
planning and decision-making on Tracy’s part, a situation
she hadn’t contemplated given their earlier plans. Should
she put Adam, who needed constant care, into a nursing
home or should she keep him with her? Should they move
from their retirement home to be nearer their children?
Tracy decided she couldn’t put Adam into a nursing home
and was determined to manage his care herself. She did
anticipate that she would need help and respite from time to
time. Consequently, she moved them from their retirement
dream home to a small apartment in a city where they had a
support group of friends and where the children could easily
visit and provide periodic relief for her.
The next five years were grueling. Tracy’s 100-pound frame
had to push a wheelchair containing a 200 pound body, to
ease that body in and out of bed and to turn it. It was heart-
breaking watching Adam struggle to understand and com-
municate, to witness at times his searching his brain for who
she or the children were.
When the final stroke struck, Tracy and the children gath-
ered around Adam’s hospital bed and together they made
the decision that it was time to let go. Each in turn declared
their love for Adam and assured him it was okay for him
to give up the struggle to hold on. They would have each
other and they would be fine. Adam’s only response was
one rasping breath and then he stopped breathing. “It’s
okay, Dad,” Josh said. “You can go now.” Adam suddenly
sucked in another lungful of air. “Or not,” Josh answered
and they all broke up. Adam died to the sound of his family
sharing a hearty laugh together.
Certainly, I am not advocating foregoing the end-of-life
planning necessary. I believe everybody, whether begin-
ning life’s journey as an adult, or nearer chronologically the
implementation time for documents like wills, powers of
attorney and do not resuscitate orders, should make and sign
these . What I do want to convey is that, when life sends
you down a path you wouldn’t have chosen, you must be
ready to adjust and re-plan for the future.
Given the circumstances that Tracy faced, you may find it is
best for you and your family to find a facility with profes-
sionals to handle the care-giving needed. Tracy’s choice
did not come without a cost to her. She suffers from shoul-
der and back pain from the strain to her bones, joints and
muscles during those five years of care she gave Adam. She
looks at this as something that will eventually heal, not a
permanent disability. Hopefully, she will be proved right.
Some, however, have health conditions would not make it
wise to follow Tracy’s course.
Tracy had the constant cooperation and support of her chil-
dren. Not every family is that fortunate. If life diverts you
from your best-laid plans, make your path fit your unique
situation. That will make all the difference.
Sandra W. Reed is an attorney practicing in Glen Rose. She
is Of Counsel with the Elder Law firm of Katten & Benson
in Fort Worth. If you have any questions, you may contact
her by phone at 254.797.0211 or by email at swreed2@ya-
hoo.com.
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Oaks, Judy & Oaks, Kelly. The Cleburne Eagle News (Cleburne, Tex.), Ed. 1 Thursday, October 3, 2013, newspaper, October 3, 2013; Cleburne, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1499821/m1/4/?q=music: accessed June 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Johnson County Historical Commission.