S.F. Schools’ Proposed Reading List

Re “S.F. Schools Consider Nonwhite Writer Quota,” March 12:

I consider myself a liberal and open-minded and I can’t think of a dumber idea. I heard one individual point out that we learned very little about the contributions of African Americans to the United States. I can only say that’s a function of curriculum, not author selection by skin color. Such quotas equate quantity with quality without reference to what might be lost in leaving some off the list in order to meet some arbitrary figure.

It may have a lofty ideal, but it sacrifices quality education. If they wish to insist a certain number of works by authors of color be included, by all means, open up and expand the lists.

MICHAEL SOLOMON

Los Angeles

* One important issue has not yet been broached. The purpose for exposing students to the “classics” (whether by white writers or otherwise) extends beyond just self-exploration and studies of the human condition. How about the historical impact of books like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”? Or the cultural significance of books such as “Moby Dick,” “The Three Musketeers” and “Great Expectations”?

Though it may be educational and politically correct to teach schoolchildren about the lives, mores and thoughts of George Washington’s servants or Napoleon’s washing lady, to do so to the exclusion of the historical figures themselves would be dangerous and ludicrous.

AMANDA RORABACK

Santa Monica

* As a native Southern Californian educated in this state, I applaud the San Francisco school board’s bold, brave and timely decision to diversify its required-reading list.

I lament much of the obvious political and social apartheid agenda propagated by the exclusively white textbook writers of my school years. Most disturbing were the negative characterizations of entire groups of people in social studies textbooks.

Times change, people change and demographics change. Schools must serve their clients and the clients are no longer all white. Exposing students to diverse and inclusive required-reading lists should be viewed as an exciting, revolutionary and evolutionary harbinger of tolerance, understanding and acceptance of what is merely different, but by no means inferior.

GEORGE C. BALDERAS

Corona