Make school the place to be

Re “Absence Makes the School Go Ponder,” Dec. 29

Want young people to come to school? I have the secret solution: make it a place they want to be. Assume that learning is innate, something that happens all the time in life, something that until forced to do, most people enjoy and seek. Want to make sure attendance is as high as possible? Make it optional -- that is the incentive to do everything possible to make sure people really want to be there. Dissatisfaction with the current one-size-fits-all, top-down bureaucratic public schooling system has already led to millions opting out completely. Take a look at Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, one of the oldest successful democratic schools in the country.

Forget tired old fixes for a creaky old system. Don’t make us opt out. Let’s spend that public school money locally, creating schools unique to each community as places where people want to be together, living life for real and learning in the process.

SALLY ROSLOFF

Northridge