Where Do the School Bucks Stop?

Re “Cheapskate Conservatives Cheat Students,” Opinion, April 3: Richard Rothstein is hardly in a position to criticize when his views and suggestions are integral parts of the problems affecting education and society. History has proved that, in the balance, liberal reformers and progressives more often harm those they intend to help.

Pouring public funds into preschool would serve only to exacerbate the irresponsibility of parents who are the products of an ideology that branded classes of people as perpetual victims and robbed generations of students of their education by careless experimentation and the failures of good intentions.

The primary problems facing our nation are the results of the reckless reinvention of society by the boomer generation on a mission to change the world. Money cannot buy cures for the nonsense that ails America. The rehabilitation of education, common sense, self-determination and accepting responsibility can.

Daniel B. Jeffs

Apple Valley

*

Rothstein notes that “disadvantaged children’s [test] scores fall during the summer break, while middle-class children’s don’t.”

Research tells us why reading scores fall: Children of poverty have less access to books during the summer; they have far fewer books at home and live in neighborhoods with inferior public libraries. This means they read less and therefore make less progress in reading, writing and vocabulary development. Some of the “added dollars” Rothstein calls for should go to libraries, especially in high-poverty areas.

California’s libraries clearly need better funding. In addition to having the worst school libraries in the U.S., California’s public libraries are also among the worst, with libraries in the Los Angeles area the furthest behind: In a recent University of Wisconsin study, Los Angeles ranked 73, Anaheim 78 and Santa Ana 79 out of 79 American cities in public library quality.

Stephen Krashen

Professor Emeritus

USC School of Education

*

I think that what bothers us “cheapskate conservatives” the most is that the local Catholic and Lutheran schools turn out better students for $3,000 per year in lower grades and $5,000 per year in high school. Both these figures are, of course, a bargain compared to the $7,000 California spends per pupil. I wonder why Rothstein didn’t mention what religious schools spend?

James L. Jones

Monrovia