Girl's teams don't get equal support

I was glad to see that your editorial "SRO basketball" (Feb. 19). It's good to know that women's sports may finally be getting some recognition.

As a junior at Centennial High School in Howard County, I've experienced the negative feelings toward girls' sports. I play both basketball and lacrosse, and the attendance for both is very poor.

We play directly before the boys' varsity team during basketball season, so the most anybody usually sees of our game is the last five minutes -- and that only to insure that they get a good seat for the guys' game. Granted, there are a few people who come out to almost every game, but for the most part the girls' teams are not supported.

If our society is supposed to believe that men and women are equal, then how come athletics are not treated that way?

I hope more emphasis will be placed on women's athletics in the future and that sellout games like the one at the University of Maryland continue.

Sheri Happel

Ellicott City

Pro-family

Gwinn Owens (Forum, Feb. 18) took offense to the implication that anyone who is "pro-choice" is also "anti-life."

He stated that, although he and his wife are "pro-choice," they have reared four children in a loving environment (by their "choice") thus serving as evidence that they are "pro-life."

However, rearing four children does not make one "pro-life," rather it makes one "pro-family." Being "pro-life" means that one believes that each conceived child has the inalienable right to live, and that this right is not extended to only a select, privileged few.

When one is "pro-choice," one is inevitably advocating the indiscriminate exercising of one person's right to choose over another's right to live. In this sense, being "pro-choice" most assuredly implies that one is "anti-life" for certain children.

Michael Burns

Mt. Airy

Larger classes

It's predicted that the enrollment of new students in Baltimore County next year will increase by more than 4,000.

It is also predicted that at least 300 teachers, maybe more, will take a retirement incentive being offered by the county to those at the high end of the pay scale.

Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden stated at a meeting Feb. 21 that no new public employees, including teachers, will be hired now or in the coming fiscal year, because the money will not be there.

This scares us. We know that the teachers will not have the time to help our child or yours. Larger classes will also contribute to more discipline problems which will take away even more instructional time.

Roger W. and Donna M. Provost

Baltimore

Supt. Amprey is gunning for Evelyn Beasley

The role of School Superintendent Walter Amprey in the recent shooting at Roland Park Elementary-Middle School is lamentable. The integrity of the school should be protected against further assignment of "problem" students there.

School staffers, teachers, students and parents have been complaining for months about the assignment of students with disciplinary problems to Roland Park.Assignments have been made repeatedly over the protests of the school, and the assignments have been made with the direct knowledge and involvement of the school superintendent.

It is clear that Mr. Amprey has been gunning for school principals who have shown initiative and independence in the system. The assignment of "problem" students to Roland Park had the purpose of provoking a confrontation with Principal Evelyn Beasley, whose independent stature as a result of an outstanding record is well known.

Now that a predictable incident has occurred as a result of these assignments, Mr. Amprey should take the responsibility, not use it as an excuse to bash the Roland Park staff for its "failure to maintain proper discipline."

Mayor Schmoke's proposal for a special middle school to deal with troublesome middle school youngsters -- like the Francis W. Wood Alternative High School for older students -- should be pursued as an urgent priority. This would focus on the issue of ever younger "problem" students in the Baltimore public schools. Attention to this issue by School Superintendent Amprey early on might have averted shooting incidents like the one at Roland Park and avoided the wasteful, internecine conflict for authority in the school system.

Peter and Ina V. Savage

Baltimore

Polls should disclose more

I am getting fed up with the polls on every subject imaginable and the prominence they are given in the media where they are presented as absolute fact.

Any journalist knows that it is possible to get any predetermined result from any poll by the way the questions are solicited or phrased.

Let me give you an example. Question: "Should we increase spending on education or public health benefits or both?" Or: "Are better education and better public health benefits important to you?"

Most people would probably say that both were important. But when this result is reported it will come out as: "Most people will support taxes to improve education and public health."

If the preponderance of respondents to the question were ones who have strong interest in education, that would show a bias in the result. And what is not in the questions at all is the source of the money for these increased costs.

For any poll to have any validity, reports should include the exact wording of the questions asked and the demographic spread of the respondents by percentage.

If you accept the results of polls prima facie, you know that the rating of media people is nearly as bad as politicians. This may be a direct result of unverified or incomplete reporting on how the polls were taken.

In spite of such results we know there are many fine reporters and editors.

William S. Arnold Jr.

Baltimore

Vet bashers

It is time to lay to rest the Vietnam War bashers. Not everyone in the '60s and '70s was trying to avoid the draft. Many of us who were middle-class 20-year-olds then were willing to do what the law required. We did it proudly and as best we could.

Kenneth M. Stockwell

Bel Air

Duped again

Now that Justice Clarence Thomas has sided with the right-wing Supreme Court majority in a case restrictively interpreting the Voting Rights Act, it should be crystal clear that the public has been duped again by politicians.

Behind all of the sound and fury of the Thomas nomination was the objective of securing a complaisant black signature to legitimize the court's reactionary stand on questions of race.

Gregory Lewis

Baltimore

The drug scourge

I am writing in response to Neil Solomon's column "Don't decriminalize -- enforce the laws we have" (Feb. 18), which dealt with the need for courts to hold drug offenders responsible for their actions rather than allow them to be released "in a revolving-door justice system."

Dr. Solomon pointed out that we must prosecute and convict drug offenders to prevent them from reaching and holding on to a new generation of abusers in our schools and communities.

Once a new generation of children fall into the drug-abuse trap, the problem compounds.

The stress on drug-prevention education for young children today has made youth less susceptible to the treachery of drugs than their counterparts were years ago. Through media campaigns and adult education, parents are more aware of how to recognize the signs of drug and alcohol abuse in their teens. Nevertheless, children are still falling victim to drugs. More must be done to protect young people from these dangers.

The answer lies in stricter enforcement of existing drug laws. By removing drug dealers and abusers from our streets one by one, the pressure to begin using drugs is alleviated for the youth.

If drugs become difficult to obtain, those who have them will be less willing to share them with others. Law enforcement officials should attack the problem at the top.

That way the results will work themselves down to our children.

Laure Kaylor

Baltimore