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This Just In ...

Kevin Fischer is a veteran broadcaster, the recipient of over 150 major journalism awards from the Milwaukee Press Club, the Wisconsin Associated Press, the Northwest Broadcast News Association, the Wisconsin Bar Association, and others. He has been seen and heard on Milwaukee TV and radio stations for over three decades. A longtime aide to state Senate Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature, Kevin can be seen offering his views on the news on the public affairs program, "InterCHANGE," on Milwaukee Public Television Channel 10, and heard filling in on Newstalk 1130 WISN. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their lovely baby daughter, Kyla Audrey, in Franklin.

A snow job on MLK Day? I don't think so


Kids in Charlotte, North Carolina public schools were supposed to have Monday off. After all, it’s Martin Luther King Day.

However, the school district has decided to use Monday as a snow make-up day. No day off. Classes will be held.

Needless to say, the local chapter of the NAACP is upset with the decision. Its president is urging parents to keep their children home from school where they would, what, watch TV and play video games all day?

The mayor of Charlotte disagrees, contending the youngsters need to be in class. Good for him.

Martin Luther King wrote and said the following in 1947:

Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society.”

To be educated, one must actually be in school, and on Monday, students have the opportunity to discuss and learn about King and his legacy. Many distractions from a day off prevent that from occurring.

February is Black History Month, providing ample time to reflect about King. Charlotte students won’t suffer if they’re at school Monday instead of fiddling on their home computers or running through the malls.

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