Char­ter schools op­er­ate in the gray zone be­tween the pub­lic sec­tor and the pri­vate sec­tor. While they are sup­ported with tax­payer dol­lars and are char­tered by pub­lic school boards, they are pri­vately man­aged and ap­point their own boards of di­rec­tors. Still, they must be held to the same ac­a­demic stan­dards as tra­di­tional pub­lic schools, and they must be ac­count­able to the tax­pay­ers who fund them.

Lead­ers from all parts of the po­lit­i­cal spec­trum now agree that the Penn­syl­va­nia char­ter school law, passed in 1997, is woe­fully out of date and poorly writ­ten. Gov. Tom Wolf’s pro­posed changes to the law and as­so­ci­ated reg­u­la­tions this month are a

wel­come step to­ward some needed re­form.

The gov­er­nor’s ini­ti­a­tion of ex­ec­u­tive ac­tion will kick-start reg­u­la­tions to in­crease ac­cess, trans­par­ency, and fund­ing ac­count­abil­ity. He also has pro­posed a cap on en­roll­ment in low per­form­ing cy­ber-char­ters, and Right-to-Know and Eth­ics Act cov­er­age.

Costs for char­ter school stu­dents have be­come one of the larg­est bud­get items for school dis­tricts.

Yet some char­ter school ad­vo­cates are con­cerned that the re­forms head down a road that will be det­ri­men­tal to their fund­ing.

All stake­hold­ers need to be heard on this com­plex is­sue.

Amid a trade war with China and ques­tions about the U.S. econ­omy, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump men­tioned the pos­si­bil­ity of buy­ing Green­land, the big is­land bor­dered by the At­lan­tic and the Arc­tic oceans. Crazy idea? Maybe not.

The move, if it were to hap­pen, is es­sen­tially “a large real es­tate deal,” the pres­i­dent said, a good stra­te­gic move, given its nat­u­ral re­sources and its geo­graphic po­si­tion.

Green­land is a ter­ri­tory of Den­mark, whose of­fi­cials quickly scoffed at the idea and said the is­land is not for sale. Green­land’s Min­is­try of For­eign Af­fairs said in a tweet: “Green­land is rich in valu­able re­sources such as min­er­als, the pur­est wa­ter and ice, fish stocks, sea­food, re­new­able en­ergy, and is a new fron­tier for ad­ven­ture tour­ism. We’re open for busi­ness, not for sale.”

Den­mark sends Green­land about $700 mil­lion a year to bal­ance its bud­get. The is­land has been about 80 per­cent cov­ered by ice. It has a host of valu­able min­er­als, from ura­nium to oil and nat­u­ral gas re­serves, and is lo­cated stra­te­gi­cally near Europe and Rus­sia and the Arc­tic Cir­cle, valu­able for U.S. mil­i­tary pur­poses.

Some have spec­u­lated that Mr. Trump talked about the pur­chase to di­vert pub­lic at­ten­tion from other is­sues; some be­lieve he is se­ri­ous, want­ing in his leg­acy a hall­mark ac­qui­si­tion equiv­a­lent to the pur­chase of Alaska;

still oth­ers have gig­gled that he may want it as home to more Trump golf courses and ho­tels, given that the warm­ing cli­mate has elim­i­nated some of the is­land’s ice-shorn sur­faces.

Per­haps sur­pris­ingly, Mr. Trump is not the first Amer­i­can leader to sug­gest a Green­land pur­chase. It was sug­gested in the 1860s but never pro­ceeded, and a move to ac­quire it for $100 mil­lion in 1946 by Pres­i­dent Harry Tru­man was re­buffed.

No pur­chase price this time has been floated pub­licly, and Mr. Trump ar­gues that a sale would save Den­mark plenty of money from its an­nual sub­sidy. Plus, it would be a key lo­ca­tion should the United States wish to put a mis­sile base there, which it likely couldn’t do now. There is a U.S. mil­i­tary base in Green­land. The United States also wants to counter moves by Rus­sian and China in the Arc­tic. China also re­cently sought to pay for the con­struc­tion of three air­ports in Green­land.

The 836,300-square-mile is­land — more than three times the size of Texas — ac­tu­ally could be a valu­able as­set to the United States. But be­sides the out­right re­jec­tion by the Den­mark gov­ern­ment, the 56,000 res­i­dents of Green­land, which has strong home-rule laws, likely would spurn such an own­er­ship switch, most ex­perts con­clude.

A Green­land pur­chase ad­mit­tedly is un­likely, but the idea may not be so crazy.

In re­sponse to the Aug. 22 let­ter “Guns Make us All Less Safe,” I wish to share an al­ter­na­tive view.

First, the let­ter states “Guns make us less safe.” Who or what guar­an­tees any­one’s safety on a daily ba­sis? Do “au­to­mo­biles make us less safe”? There were 268.8 mil­lion reg­is­tered ve­hi­cles in the United States in 2016. There were 3,287 deaths per day due to al­co­hol in 2016; 1.25 mil­lion per year. In 2017, 12.8 mil­lion peo­ple drove a ve­hi­cle un­der the in­flu­ence of il­licit drugs. Using a ve­hi­cle un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol or drugs is a choice, just as us­ing a gun in­ap­pro­pri­ately is a choice.

Second, the let­ter states that sui­cides are in­creased by gun num­bers. I ask, “would sui­cides still oc­cur if guns were not avail­able?” Sui­cides are tragic for those that suf­fer hope­less­ness, how­ever, guns do not have “cause and ef­fect” on this de­ci­sion to end their life.

Third, the let­ter states the Second Amend­ment should be re­pealed. Our fore­fathers in 1791 knew that this would be an is­sue in the fu­ture. Our ju­di­cial sys­tem has up­held this amend­ment for a rea­son. I choose to pro­tect my­self, my fam­ily and friends should evil come my way. Self-pro­tec­tion is not a “myth,” but a re­al­ity and ne­ces­sity in our bro­ken world. A law-abid­ing in­di­vid­ual should al­ways be per­mit­ted to ex­er­cise this right.

In clos­ing, I know that there are peo­ple who have been im­pacted by gun vi­o­lence who may read this and dis­agree. My Chris­tian world­view ac­knowl­edges that we live in a sin­ful world — my­self in­cluded — and this is not the world God in­tended. Death in this life will come to all of us. We are hurt and feel pain when we lose a loved one due to gun vi­o­lence or any other cause. No law will end gun vi­o­lence, as God gives

us free will to make choices ev­ery day in many ar­eas of life, right or wrong. The love and grace found in Je­sus Christ is avail­able to ev­ery­one; and is a choice worth in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

Dan Un­rath

Mars

Life is pre­cious

Re­cently the Senate, be­cause of 44 Demo­cratic votes, failed to pass the Born-Alive Sur­vi­vor’s Pro­tec­tion Act. Soon the House may have an op­por­tu­nity to do the right thing on its own and pos­si­bly awaken the con­science of the Senate and the na­tion.

It is as­ton­ish­ing that one should have to ar­gue for this bill. The justice of it is ex­ceed­ingly ap­par­ent. It sim­ply pro­hib­its the mur­der of an in­fant. Con­gress­man Conor Lamb needs to do the right thing. Amer­ica, let’s agree to treat as pre­cious the life of our new­est and weak­est cit­i­zens.

Dan Hend­ley

McCand­less

A blind eye

I am a reg­is­tered Dem­o­crat but my po­lit­i­cal views have noth­ing to do with my party af­fil­i­a­tion. I never vote straight party lines, but for those who I think are best qual­i­fied for the job. In this case, it was not for the per­son cur­rently in the White House (nor did I vote for Hil­lary Clin­ton, so let me off that hook).

I re­fer to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump as “that per­son” and not as my pres­i­dent or a man be­cause, to me, he is nei­ther. Every time I think he can’t do any­thing else to amaze me, he opens his mouth. He in­sults our al­lies, their lead­ers, our U.S. cit­i­zens and Amer­i­can cit­ies, and de­fends the lead­ers that he is hav­ing a bro­mance with, even