Mayor’s bid to take over schools hits opposition

Re April 19

As a longtime resident of Los Angeles, I mistakenly expected the mayor to address numerous city problems, i.e. traffic, street repair, the homeless situation and similar issues in his State of the City address. Instead, he announces his plan to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District. Even more interesting is the fact that he will not ask the voters who elected him to assist him in this project. Instead, he will go to the Legislature to accomplish his goal. If he had cited successes during his first nine months to lend weight to his current undertaking, it might be more credible. None were cited because none exist. I think that the mayor should attempt to demonstrate competence at his current job before looking for new worlds to conquer.

John S. Nelson

Los Angeles

As a retired L.A. Unified teacher, I am appalled that the mayor believes he can run the district. To go to the Legislature for authority to run the city’s public schools is frightening. To take the decision on how the district is to be managed out of the jurisdiction of those it serves — the local electorate — is equally alarming. Substituting one bureaucracy for another is not a satisfactory means to better education. For too long, educators have allowed those with political interests to dictate what and how to teach. Now is the time for teachers everywhere to stand for sound educational principles and take back the classroom. Only then will the students achieve an education — not while a mayor or governor or any other bureaucrat is vying for power.

Peg Spry

Agua Dulce

As a 13-year teaching veteran of L.A. Unified, I am all for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa taking over our school district, on one condition: that he pull his children out of private school and enroll them in the district. Then there could be no doubt that his intentions are for the good of public school students rather than for his own political gain.

Dennis Danziger

Los Angeles

Re editorial, April 19

“But it may be the most ambitious feasible plan, or the most feasible ambitious plan, for holding the schools accountable.” This line from your editorial supporting the mayor’s plan to take over schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District was only a little more shocking than the fact that you are generally supportive of his honor’s power grab. Does L.A. Unified need reforming at every level, from the administration through the union through the classroom? Absolutely. Does it need to sacrifice democracy for dictatorship to accomplish this? Absolutely not. Do our children need to be pawns in our mayor’s upwardly bound political ambitions? Again, absolutely not. The Times needs to do some serious rethinking of its position on this issue.

Jim Turner

Granada Hills

Universities need not assist anti-gay stance

Re editorial, April 15

The Times addresses the wrong concern: The “war” isn’t over “words,” it’s about whether public universities have to help anti-gay, activist Christian students make their verbal attacks on homosexuals. Although these students have a constitutional right to express their opinions, there is no requirement that a university provide them with a microphone and podium.

Universities, to their credit, have established broadly based nondiscrimination policies that campus groups may agree to as a condition for using university facilities. If a white supremacist group doesn’t agree with the university policy, its members can still make racist remarks; they just can’t expect the university to provide them with loudspeakers. Likewise, if religiously oriented students want to preach hate against gays, they can do it; they just can’t expect a publicly funded university to help them.

David Michels

Encino

College Republicans are going to have to choose: They either want free speech or they don’t. By undermining speech codes intended to protect minority students from abusive language, campus conservatives have proved beyond doubt that the so-called students’ rights movement is simply a ploy intended to punish faculty members for their alleged liberal bias.

Opening campus speech to hate speech directed at gay students also means that campus speech must remain open to the defamation of everyone else — not least, the president of the United States.

Russell A. Burgos

Faculty Fellow, UCLA

Thousand Oaks

Suicide bombing

highlights hatreds

Re April 18

The Times gave us graphic details on Monday’s tragic suicide bombing that killed nine Israelis, but it told us little about the Palestinian context.

A Palestinian college student lost her right eye after being shot by an Israeli sniper last week. In the preceding 2 1/2 weeks alone, Israeli forces killed 26 Palestinians, five of them children, according to the Palestinian Monitoring Group. Israeli forces fired at least 2,300 artillery shells and 34 missiles into Gaza, according to a U.N. report. About 9,400 Palestinians are incarcerated under brutal conditions in Israeli prisons, according to the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian civilians have been killed in far greater numbers than Israelis throughout this conflict.

We are Americans, not Israelis. Please give us the whole picture, not an Israeli-centric one.

Alison Weir

Executive Director

If Americans Knew

Los Angeles

The Times is right to slam Hamas for its response to the heinous terrorist act carried out by Islamic Jihad (editorial, April 18). Obviously, Hamas will never be a partner for peace.

Yet The Times misses the mark when it states that Israel should not marginalize Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. While Abbas condemned the sickening attack, he stated the attack was against Palestinian interests. The implication from this statement is that killing civilians would be OK if it furthered Palestinian interests. Furthermore, Abbas failed to condemn Palestinian schools, media and religious leaders who fill children with hate.

If Abbas were interested in promoting peace, he would have done something about the poisoning of Palestinian youths’ minds, which is the ultimate obstacle to peace.

Josh Baker

Bloomfield, Mich.

You write in your editorial that Monday’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv “does mean that Israel has cause to crack down anew on Islamic Jihad and institute stronger security measures ... even if that means injuring and inconveniencing innocent Palestinians.” You have actually proved Hamas’ point that innocent civilians are acceptable collateral damage.

Marjorie Cohn

San Diego

No deal for Epps

Re editorial, April 11

The UCLA School of Public Health has not extended an offer to Antionette Smith Epps, chief executive of the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, nor is there a “deal” for her to join our faculty. Faculty are hired after a rigorous process, and only if they will enhance the school’s research, teaching and service mission.

Part-time appointments are not unusual; many of our faculty hold full-time positions elsewhere. Their knowledge and practical experience provide invaluable real-world perspectives and opportunities for our students — opportunities that we believe will prepare them to become our future public health leaders.

Linda Rosenstock MD, MPH

Dean, UCLA School of Public Health

Los Angeles

That’s for Suri

Re April 19

Now that the Tomkats have started their Kitty Littler, can we please move on?

Claudine Willis

Portland, Ore.