Teaching in Los Angeles

I encourage Los Angeles Unified School District teacher Jeffrey Lantos (Commentary, Dec. 9) to keep up the good fight. But concerned parents sending their children to private schools are not the enemy. Lantos’ selective tour of Mulholland Drive’s “preppy aeries” presents far less than the whole picture of private schools today.

My son attends a private school, along with the children of plumbers, salespeople, attorneys and carpenters. Not a single family in our school community could be considered among L.A.’s “movers and shakers.” Like the vast majority of families struggling to pay their fair share of taxes and private school tuition, we chose a private school because it is the only way our children can get the same kind of education Los Angeles public schools gave us in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Yes, the situation in the public schools is deplorable, as is the governmental action and inaction that created today’s conditions. But Lantos’ rhetoric of class warfare and “blood in the streets” hardly helps build the kind of support he seeks. Tarring all private schools with the brush of “elitism” will only further divide our fragile community.

HOWARD SCHNEIDER

North Hills