Education is in the midst of what might be its most intense era of scrutiny, and that tougher scrutiny seems destined to continue.

Kimberly Morris, a language arts instructor at Mars Middle School, undoubtedly is an example of the educational quality being sought by school officials from Butler County to Washington, D.C. And, to her credit, she hasn't stopped setting her sights higher.

Morris will attempt to attain a national board of professional teachers certification, a certification that only 644 teachers in the nation now have.

Not only would it be an honor for Morris to receive the certification, but she believes the effort to attain it would enhance her teaching skills.

Part of the discussion in the nation at this time is focused on how to get and keep the best teachers in the classroom and how to help those with great potential to improve their skills.

By embarking on her goal, Morris is showing that good teachers have the power for self-improvement by trying to do something extra.

When the Western Butler County Authority, which provides sanitary sewer service to Harmony and neighboring places, encounters a problem, it should address it expeditiously.That apparently didn't happen in response to damage that a number of Harmony residences received during a rainstorm on Aug. 12. Two residents told the borough council Tuesday evening that it took authority workers nearly two months to inspect the area and that they had received no explanation from the authority about the possible cause.Larry Druschel, one of the residents, said he has lived in the same house since 1967 and that a situation like the one that occurred Aug. 12 had never before occurred, not even during the heavy rains during Hurricane Ivan, which caused extensive damage in the area.Councilman Jack Shanks said that the sewer backup had affected many residents in the borough. He said some had as much as three feet of water in their basement.While the authority can be faulted for not investigating the situation quickly, the borough council doesn't merit any plaudits either regarding the backup.The council should have been proactive and sought the cause of the problem — and what corrective action the authority would undertake and when — soon after the backup occurred. Members of the council were elected to look out for residents' best interests and to be familiar with issues affecting the community.Steven Painter, another affected resident who attended Tuesday's session, said he, like Druschel, was not at the meeting to seek monetary reimbursement but, instead, to obtain assurance that another backup would not occur — an assurance borough officials could not provide.The authority should have a better rapid-response procedure in place than what has been demonstrated in this case. It also should develop a procedure for apprising customers of what is being done to correct problems.There's no excuse for doing little or nothing about a problem for two months.

The Butler business district and its various neighborhoods would look better if everyone tried to do at least a small part to improve the community's appearance.Instead of ignoring litter or other things that might be soiling the community's environment and appeal, many people simply bending over, picking up something and then discarding it in a trash receptacle would go a long way toward putting on the clean face that should be the goal of everyone in the city.People should follow the lead and attitude of a frail, elderly gentleman Friday who, while walking on a West Cunningham Street sidewalk, was using the tip of his cane to push some kind of berries off the curb, so no one would step on them and crush them on the sidewalk.His wasn't a major accomplishment; probably nobody will notice that something was done.Neither might anyone notice some of the little things others might do. But there would be a positive result from those small acts of responsibility and civic pride.

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama criticized the administration of George W. Bush for the apparent disregard for scientific evidence regarding climate change. Obama also criticized the Bush administration for cherry-picking reports.For those reasons, it's particularly troubling that the Obama administration appears to have initially, and intentionally, underreported the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion and fire on the BP oil rig last spring.A report issued by a commission appointed by Obama to study the oil spill disaster suggests political considerations in the White House caused the underestimation of flow rates and disregarded higher flow estimates from others.And later, in the summer, when the oil flow was stopped, the White House issued a statement saying that most of the oil had disappeared, either by evaporation or other means. Again, most scientists disagreed.The two misleading reports suggested, according to the commission, that the federal government was "either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people."By apparently allowing politics to brush aside scientific evidence, the Obama administration lost credibility. It's also worth wondering what the reaction would have been if the underreported flow rate and magical oil disappearance statements had been made by the Bush White House.