Whittle Schools

Bravo to those educational experts and eager corporate sponsors who recognize the crucial need to revamp our school system and are attempting to do so. In your article “Yale President to Leave, Head New Private-School Venture” (May 26), Yale’s President Benno C. Schmidt has joined the Whittle project in its plan to create “1,000 for-profit schools designed to rival public schools.”

The Whittle project will in fact challenge the already existing private and well-funded suburban schools, but how can public schools compete when there is a shortage of classroom textbooks? While any school, private or public, can benefit from upgrading, the public schools cannot await the outcome of the Whittle experiment. Public schools need to be revamped now. Why not channel the great energy and funds of the Whittle project into a nonprofit urban system, putting effort where it is needed most instead of hoping that success from the top will be filtered down through time?

SARAH GUNDERSON

Playa del Rey