‘Teachers Must Never Give Up’

High school principal George McKenna comes out strongly on the affirmative side of one of the most critical questions in modern education (“Teachers of Children Must Never Give Up,” Op-Ed Page, Jan. 19). Does the public school have the legal and ethical responsibility to keep certain students in regular classes in which their persistently negative behavior obviously makes it extremely difficult for their classmates to learn?

McKenna says, yes, “we must never give up on them.” Highly disruptive students thus must be retained in their classes so as to receive “liberative and compassionate” therapy from their teachers, he insists, even if in the interim the educational progress of a large majority of their classmates suffers drastically as a result.

Unfortunately, this willingness to sacrifice the interests of the great mass of students for the special benefit of an alienated few is not unique to McKenna. To teachers’ continual distress many school administrators share McKenna’s view that it is “morally unforgivable and educationally dangerous” for teachers to ask that a few consistent troublemakers in their classes be expelled.

Without doubt schools should utilize the positive activities McKenna says he has taken to keep students in his school. On the other hand, it is wishful thinking of the worst kind to assume, as he does, that schools have the time, expertise, and resources to be all things to all students.

To the contrary, it would be better for public schools to request that other agencies of the government take responsibility for the care of extremely troubled students. Schools that attempt to assume this function put at high risk the success of their basic purpose--the development of literate, knowledgeable, and critical-minded graduates.

PATRICK GROFF

San Diego