To the Editor:
Re "To Cut Failure Rate, Schools Shed Students" ("Pushed Out" series, front page, July 31):
As a New York City high school teacher, I have seen firsthand how failing students affect the overall tone of a school; it is not pretty.
Students who have given up on school not only disrupt classes and make teaching and learning difficult, but they also send a message to my on-track students that says, What is the point of studying when you can hang out in the hallway (cutting classes) until age 21?
Chancellor Joel I. Klein says, "The problem of what's happening to the students is a tragedy." I agree. But keeping these failing students languishing in high schools at the expense of our striving young New Yorkers is no solution.
RACHEL COHN Brooklyn, Aug. 1, 2003
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To the Editor:
There is one simple solution to retaining high school students that has worked in college for a century: allow students to choose a major ("Pushed Out" series, front page, July 31).
Let's stop the foolishness of requiring every student to take and do well in every specialized subject.
It is good democratic practice and wise pedagogy, and gets us beyond the 19th-century fiction that everyone needs the same education.
GRANT WIGGINS Hopewell, N.J., July 31, 2003 The writer is an education consultant.
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To the Editor: Re "To Cut Failure Rate, Schools Shed Students" ("Pushed Out" series, front page, July 31):
Students who skip school and then need more than four years to graduate are wasting taxpayer money. Let's stop blaming schools for not educating kids who aren't there.
SUSAN VAN DRUTEN Duluth, Minn., Aug. 1, 2003
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To the Editor:
Re your "Pushed Out" series (front page, July 31 and Aug. 1):
Increasingly, we have concrete proof of the heartless, destructive consequences of the corporate approach to education.
When schools "are facing real temptations to make their results look good by getting rid of low performers," and dedicated professionals report that they must "focus on the numbers," rather than on the kids, education is not fulfilling its function of helping children achieve their potential and become productive members of society.
If "accountability" had any real meaning, government would require schools to be something more than a test-taking crucible.
SYLVIA WERTHEIMER New York, Aug. 1, 2003
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To the Editor:
"To Cut Failure Rate, Schools Shed Students" (front page, July 31) is just another example of the sad state of affairs that our city schools are in. Have our educational institutions become only anxiety-ridden places that try to crank out high test scores and leave out the other important elements that nurture the young spirit?
Research shows that our children do much better in school and want to stay there when they have art and music as well. And now the city's schools are cutting back on those subjects.
Isn't there anyone working in the city system who is a child advocate? Our children need you!
LINDA KASTNER New York, July 31, 2003 The writer is an art teacher.
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To the Editor:
In 1951, as a young "permanent substitute" teacher in a New York City public school, I asked some veteran teachers how their classes always had high test averages; my class averages, with similar students, were always in the failing range.
It was simple. They destroyed the lowest test scores and marked those students as "absent."
Today, you published "To Cut Failure Rate, Schools Shed Students" on your front page. Perhaps it was better to tear up the low scores.
RICHARD THALER Merrick, N.Y., July 31, 2003
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