Wise up on education

Re “L.A. Unified warned that it falls short of state standards,” Nov. 29

I am so tired of hearing about the No Child Left Behind program and how the school districts that do not meet the federal standards will lose financing. The way I understand the law, No Child Left Behind (at least in the L.A. Unified School District) means that if school A is on page 25 in a sixth-grade math book, schools B, C and D are also on the same page in the same book. It doesn’t matter whether 90% of the students in the class have yet to grasp the concepts in the first 24 pages; the federal law mandates the educators to move on.

If students are unable to understand concepts, wouldn’t the responsible thing be to spend more time teaching rather than moving on? If educators weren’t so pressured to teach children how to pass the exam and were allowed to teach children to understand the concepts presented, wouldn’t our dropout rate diminish?

Children need to have a sense of accomplishment to gain confidence. By being pushed to run before they can walk, many children are turned off by education. Let the educators educate and not just show our children how to turn a page in a book.

Bobbi Wax-Lavintman

Encino

For decades, I have been reading about the decline of our school system (it no longer deserves to be called an education system when 50% of students do not graduate despite the steady lowering of standards). Sometimes democracy does not work -- especially in a crisis. The bureaucrats, the teachers and their unions and the ever-present pandering politicians to these special interests do not allow for the necessary steps to get back to educating our young people.

To fix this system, we need to appoint an education “czar” for a six-year term who cannot be fired except for defined transgressions (keep the political influence at bay), abrogate all union contracts and allow the hiring and firing of employees and ban parental or employee lawsuits.

But alas, education is not really the goal of the unions, politicians or lawyers, so I will continue to read about the decline in our school system for decades to come.

James Preston

Gavilan Hills, Calif.