Opinion

LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Reita Isaacs, Liberal

Mercy, good old Kansas weather at its best. Saturday was the perfect warm day for cutting back the climbing rose bushes with only being pierced a few times; now it’s up to the trash men to haul them away, safely now for them.

Sunday was another extreme change in both temperature and wind velocity that keeps most people home where it’s consistently the desired temperature.

This last year has been one filled with “gloom, despair, and agony” for too many; but here in our own small community lives someone that defies the meaning of all these words.

L&T Publisher Earl Watt

There are several great lines in the classic Peanuts Christmas cartoon, but one in particular comes form Lucy after providing “psychiatric” services to Charlie Brown. “I understand about getting depressed around the holidays, it happens to me every year, ”Lucy says. “I never get what I really want.”

“What do you want,” Charlie Brown asks.

Lucy replies, “Real estate.”

I hope you received what you wanted this holiday season, and most importantly, that you had quality time with family and friends.

As my children have begun to scatter hither and yon, I appreciate the holiday seasons more and more. I enjoy my family coming back together, reliving some memories, creating some new ones, and remaining hopeful for what the future will bring.

We have one left in college for her final semester, and the process of education will be complete.

THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon

Yesterday I saw a friend, Bridget, whom I had not seen for a full year. “How have you been?” she asked.

“I have learned a lot about myself this year,” I told her. But at the time it was hard to say just what I’d learned.

It’s the time of year when we think of what we’ve learned in the year behind us and make resolutions for the new year. I try not to make New Year’s resolutions. All the studies show that motivation wanes by February — if we’re lucky. Changing my life by flipping a switch on December 31st is not a feasible plan. I remind myself that it is the small changes that matter. It is the daily habits that add up. It is the incremental improvements I make every day and week that result in lasting change.

But not this year. This year, I’m making a New Year’s resolution.

GUEST COLUMN, Vance Ginn,Kansas Policy Institute

The debate over school choice in Kansas often gets bogged down in politics and process. But the latest data make the stakes clear.

The 2026 ABCs of School Choice from EdChoice is the most comprehensive inventory of private school choice programs in the country. After 25 years of tracking these policies, EdChoice doesn’t just catalog programs — it evaluates them against a clear standard of what works.

By that standard, Kansas is not keeping pace.