Truants Don’t Deserve Attention--Good Students Do

* Your articles on truancy, specifically at Taft High in the San Fernando Valley, do a great disservice to our community and our society.

In what I guess was an attempt at fairness, you show both sides of the issue. You use clever catch phrases like “the lure of freedom” and by publishing truants’ remarks such as “We call it leaving . . . . Ditching makes it sound like junior high school.” It almost seems as though your reporter is trying to make it acceptable to ditch high school.

Your second day’s article gave me the impression that MTV was luring students away from school to attend a television taping. If this is true, I think that MTV should be barred from ever doing that again and should be severely fined for interfering with society’s mandate to educate our children.

It is time that the media, the government, business and, most importantly, parents take the education of our children seriously. Our society has determined that one of our primary goals is to educate the next generation. We must see this task through and do it well.

If I am wrong and education has been stressed too much, then let’s shut down some of these schools for being the waste that everyone says they are and lower our taxes! If my tax dollars are being spent to educate our children, then they better be in school.

Instead of publicizing all of the things that a 16-year-old can do when he or she ditches school and saying that parents either do not care or are not aware of their children’s “leaving,” the Los Angeles Times and MTV should be doing all they can to encourage attendance at school.

Let’s not glorify or publicize the irresponsible, the defiant and the drug users. These kids must be made aware of the consequences. Perhaps those who ditch should be required to perform community service or spend time in detention after school--on their time.

MICHAEL A. WATERMAN

Encino

* I am the parent of a student graduating from Taft High School this year, and I was dismayed to see the negative articles concerning the school. You chose to prominently position stories regarding “cheating” on the Advanced Placement Test and the problem of truancy.

What a shame you did not choose to feature any of the students honored at a two-hour awards night June 20. Taft High School honored students who have achieved academic excellence and service to their community--they were not busy cheating on tests or skipping classes. These students and their teachers deserve accolades from all of us. But perhaps this doesn’t sell newspapers.

JUDITH BRAUN

Woodland Hills