Separating students is racist
While I agree wholeheartedly with Susan Reimer's opinion (column, March 10) that schools must move away from placing children in groups by their learning abilities, I strongly object to her approach.
By the second paragraph, she has divided the world in two: the "white middle class," and the "poor" and "black".
If we are to truly dismantle the outdated system of tracking children, we must embrace a new method in which all children receive the same opportunities for learning, no matter what their ability.
Classes become heterogeneous and contain children on several different grade levels for a given subject. The curriculum is structured so all children strive to reach the same goals by the end of the semester.
Some children grasp the concepts immediately, and some take weeks and even months longer.
The joy of this system is that the children who learn more quickly tend to turn to their peers and offer assistance, fostering priceless values such as sharing, compassion, patience and learning to value the differences each brings to their environment.
A problem surfaces, however, when detracking is approached with biased beliefs such as those held by Ms. Reimer. Although in essence she is in favor of grouping children heterogeneously (a much more true-to-life situation), she is unfortunately doing some "tracking" of her own.
She states, "By high school, you have honors courses dominated by middle-class white kids, while hallways and bathrooms are dominated by kids -- often poor, often black -- who have gotten the message that they can't succeed in the classroom."
Perhaps this is the message that these children have gotten, but the fault does not rest entirely on the shoulders of public school teachers and principals.
What kind of message is Ms. Reimer sending, referring as she does to detracking as a "social experiment"?
Ms. Reimer is guilty of perpetrating a dangerous paradox. On one hand, she supports breaking down the walls that separate some children from others who may be of different learning abilities.
On the other, she facilitates a belief that the good children must be white and middle-class, and that the "behavior problems," as she calls them, must be "poor" and "black."
News flash: Not all children with behavioral and learning problems are poor and black, just as not all gifted and talented children are white middle class.
She tries to reassure other moms like herself that detracking "is not such a risk for us." A risk? A social experiment?
Our children need to learn the lessons of equality in all aspects of life -- that we are all in the same group, whether we learn quickly or slowly, and whether we are black or white. Children are born innocent, unbiased and accepting. It is only through adults that they learn the ways of hate and superiority.
Ms. Reimer's article is . . . as offensive as painting a swastika on a wall or attending a KKK rally.
We must not advocate the attitude that, in essence, the white middle class parents are allowing their children to be put in classes with those children, and are doing the rest of the world a big favor.
Detracking is "the right thing to do." But lose the us-and-them way of thinking, or you will be encouraging parents and children to follow much more dangerous tracks than "college" or "vo-tech."
Use your power to teach children that they are no better or worse than any other children, regardless of color, family income or address.
Laura Lockard
Baltimore
County school cuts
We just received notice that our elementary school, Rodgers Forge in Baltimore County, has been reduced in staff by 3.8 positions. This will significantly increase our daughter's class size next year.
Dumbarton Middle, our son's school, is also experiencing tight staffing. We feel these cuts are a direct result of skewed spending priorities in the Baltimore County public schools.
Money spent to establish new magnet schools and keep their class sizes artificially low is being taken from funds to meet basic needs of the remaining schools.
The promised extra special education staff has never materialized to take care of the additional special needs children included in the regular school.
This means that not only are class sizes larger, but the regular teachers must cope with more diverse needs. The number of special education children has not even been taken into account when establishing staffing cuts.
School Superintendent Stuart Berger wants to put the child first. My children do not feel "first," they just feel crowded.
Baltimore County public schools must redirect its spending priorities to reducing class size at all schools, not just a selected few.
Louise Teubner-Rhodes
Don Teubner-Rhodes
Towson
Smoking costs
In reply to Charles Johnston's letter April 12, I agree that "a person with an addiction for a legal drug such as nicotine" should be provided areas to smoke in.
But his suggestion that when stricken by ailments caused by smoking, smokers be left to deal with the costs, sets up a dangerous precedent.
First of all, smoking is a "contributing factor" for lung cancer. Even Johns Hopkins will not say it is the cause. What are the other possible causes?
Chemical pollution, with its many facets, including industrial and environmental? The air we breathe? The food we eat? Prescription drugs? Is one to blame for that?
How about alcohol? Perhaps no one should be covered for alcohol-related illnesses. Obesity, what about that? The list could be mind-boggling.
If Bill Clinton's health care reform kicks in, there'll be a lot of people who get less treatment for a lot of illnesses. Have you ever known the government to be that benevolent toward anything?
Lucille C. Kerns
Baltimore
Health and stealth
The recent threat by Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kansas, to filibuster important health and anti-crime bills unless the Democrats agree to Whitewater hearings before the special prosecutor's report comes out is interesting because, either way it goes, the Senate (and the country) will suffer from the resulting paralysis.
If the hearings do not occur, the Senate will be paralyzed by filibuster.
If the hearings begin, the Senate will be paralyzed by an investigation into why Bill Clinton as governor lost $47,000 in a development investment and his wife committed the unpardonable and (if you choose to believe the analysts) impossible feat of making $100,000 in the futures market.
Could it be that the Republicans are willing to let crime run rampant on the streets and the health of constituents to decline for the sum of $100,000 - $47,000 = $53,000?
Is this a bargain, or what?
John D. Venables
Towson
Cylburn buffer
In the Coldspring Urban Renewal Plan of 1973, Baltimore City made a commitment to protect the borders of Cylburn Arboretum with a buffer zone between the entrance drive off Greenspring Avenue and Spring Garden Way in Coldspring.
A bill now being considered by the City Council calls for the development of 102 housing units in this buffer zone, which is important for the environmental integrity of Cylburn.
Protection of parklands is not environmental extremism. Surely the developers and the city planning department can find another place in the urban renewal area without building in the buffer zone.
Leslie Starr
Baltimore
Junk mail rates
I am sorry to hear that the Postal Service administrators are proposing to increase the cost of mailing a 29-cent first-class letter.
The high cost of mail must be related to the volume of junk mail which must be handled and delivered.
My "junk" mail outweighs my genuine mail 20 to one. I put stacks of it in the trash or recycle bin without even reading it. I also note much of it is second- or third-class postage.
This is obnoxious. Keep the 29-cent first-class rate and balance the Postal Service's books by making junk mailers pay more.
J. Lyman Anderson
Ruxton