The Failing School System

* James A. Fleming, superintendent of the Capistrano Unified School District, wrote a provocative May 31 “Orange County Voices” column. He accurately described the confusion and contradictions imposed upon our local school districts by the machinations in Sacramento.

But Fleming failed to mention that this educational tug-of-war is primarily the doings of the educational establishment, of which he is a part.

The educational establishment has sponsored legislation, funded candidates and lobbied the state Board of Education and superintendent of public instruction to “dumb-down” academic programs and incorporate social programs.

In his closing, Fleming pines for local control. But local control has been subverted by the educational establishment. The local control he seeks is really educational establishment control, not voter control.

As elected bodies, local boards exist to represent “we the people.” But local boards often do little more than rubber-stamp the recommendations of staff, who represent “we the government.”

Staff, who were once teachers and must deal with teachers daily, rarely make recommendations that conflict with teacher union positions.

Board members, partly because some have been elected with union support and partly because they defer to the “expert” opinion of staff, approve staff recommendations with little or no debate.

As a result, elected school boards become agents of “we the government.”

BRUCE CRAWFORD

Fountain Valley

* Whatever happened to “flunk”? With all of the debate regarding our failing school system, the one thing I never hear discussed is the concept of pass or fail.

How does a student get into college or high school--or, for that matter, into the eighth grade--reading, or doing anything else, at the sixth-grade level?

Students do not want to study or even go to school. They have to be forced, which is why we have laws to that effect.

In our present liberal society, we don’t much force anyone to do anything, including obey the law. Peer pressure is a strong motivator.

I suspect that if you notified students that they were on the road to failure, which meant they would be kept back a year, which meant they would lose friends and stature, it might create a change.

JOHN WAUGEN

Anaheim