Revising SAT Questions

The hypocrisy continues. SAT scores are down and Bill Honig says television and parental apathy are to blame (Part A, Aug. 28). The children should be reading more. So, what would parents see if they visited the elementary classrooms of California? The first thing they’d notice might be the television, hooked up to a VCR. Video has replaced film as the educational equipment of choice. In another corner they’ll find another screen, attached to a computer. There will be books. Textbooks. These will have been selected through an “approval process” designed to eliminate anything objectionable to minorities. Or majorities.

Where are the real books? The ones that people can buy in bookstores? Trade books, the kind found in 49 states in school libraries and borrowed, read and treasured by children, are hard to find. In fact, you are more likely to meet a librarian if you are convicted felon in California than if you are a child in school. Young offenders in the California Youth Authority have one librarian for every 700 criminals. Students in our K-12 schools have one librarian for every 4,000 kids.

Honig knows all this. He helped get a bill through both houses and on to the governor’s desk last year that would have offered seed money for districts to improve library services and add staff. The governor vetoed it.

This year the bill was redesigned as AB 2646, but wound up in the suspense file as politicians bickered over the budget. It’s still there and could still go to the governor, but right now we’re blaming parents.

RICHARD K. MOORE

Long Beach