Social Promotion

Re Richard Rothstein’s “The Hole in the Drive to Ban Social Promotion in School,” Opinion, June 14: As my students would say: “Hello, anybody there?” Rothstein is cordially invited to teach my beginning algebra class in which more than half of the students cannot add two simple fractions, let alone understand basic concepts such as decimals and percents. These students come to me absent of basic skills because of the long-standing LAUSD policy called social promotion.

I am a teacher, not a miracle worker. At the end of the term I am left with two choices for the students who cannot learn algebra: fail them or pass them on to geometry. Does Rothstein really think I should pass them on to geometry because of “physical, social and emotional outcomes”?

HOWARD S. LAU

Hollywood High School