Education Reforms

We read with interest your post-voucher election analysis about the prospects for fundamental education reform in Sacramento (“School Voucher Threat Gives Impetus for Reform,” Nov. 8). Unfortunately, we were disappointed with the characterization of the exciting LEARN reform program under way here in Los Angeles.

The article described our Board of Education’s unanimous support of LEARN as a reluctant and defensive response to external political threats. In fact, we participated in the LEARN effort before there was a breakup movement or a threatened teacher strike or any other external political threat. On the merits alone, LEARN is the most thoughtful and comprehensive agenda to improve urban public schools anywhere in America.

Beginning January, 1991, we were proud to participate in the LEARN working group and LEARN task forces. We helped fashion the final plan and finally adopted it on a rare unanimous vote last March. We were disappointed your reporters chose to cynically portray this effort as merely a response to external threats. We supported and continue to support LEARN simply because it is the right thing to do for the students we serve.

LETICIA QUEZADA, President

L.A. Unified School District Board

The letter was also signed by board members Barbara Boudreaux, Victoria Castro, Warren Furutani, Jeff Horton, Julie Korenstein and Mark Slavkin.

* Since the defeat of Proposition 174, the school voucher initiative, there has been considerable discussion about public education reform. Throughout this discussion one vital ingredient to school reform has been conspicuously absent--parent involvement. Until teachers, school officials, politicians and the media recognize the importance of parents’ participation in the education of their children, better public schools will be a dream. The education policy-makers must realize that children who come to school unprepared by their parents to learn, or children whose parents simply lack the information and skills to communicate effectively with the schools, will be difficult children to educate.

Meaningful parent involvement must consist of the education of parents to the importance of their role in school improvement, giving parents the tools they need to be an effective force for better education, and the inclusion of parents, along with other members of the education community, in the movement for educational reform. When real effort is made to bring parents into the discussion of school improvement, we will begin to see real change for better schools.

PAT DINGSDALE, President

California State PTA

Simi Valley

* If the sponsors of the voucher plan are going to ask the public schools to compete with the private schools, then let’s make sure the playing field is level. Reduce the class size of the public classroom to match that of the private school. Allow the public schools to sort and select only the most motivated and proficient students in math and language skills, and discard all the others. Let the public schools refuse to admit the handicapped and the learning-disordered or those with a different religious or ethnic background. Let the public schools bounce any student out of the system at the first infraction of the rules. Find money to fill the classrooms with modern and entertaining technology. And finally, give the parents of the public school students decent jobs so that they have the economic freedom to find time to interact with their children and their children’s teachers.

Otherwise, keep the hypocrisy of “competition” as the solution to all our problems to yourself. God save us from the competitors of this world who cry for competition only when the deck is heavily stacked in their favor.

If you want to reform public education then find a way to reduce class size. That’s the main difference between public and private schools. Public education does not need to be reformed. The public needs to be better informed.

MICHAEL VETRIE

Public School Teacher

Sylmar

* Recently an advocate for California public schools said that the public schools must improve their image. The advocate missed the point entirely. The public schools need to improve their competence and discipline. Their image will then take care of itself.

PATRICIA J. GRANT

Del Mar