Mentors alone will not protect children at risk
I read with great interest about the effort to use mentors to help at-risk juveniles ("Mentors sought for at-risk juveniles," Dec. 6). This initiative comes in response to the number of city youths slain this year - which is up 42 percent from last year's total.
It is no surprise that most of the young homicide victims are involved in the drug trade. And while mentors are sought for 800 young people who "appear to be headed for serious trouble," mentorship alone will not break this cycle.
All but one of the 12 young people currently in the mentorship program have at least one parent who is an addict.
Unless we get serious about providing effective substance abuse treatment for parents, we will be destined to repeat such social ills as addiction, child abuse and neglect and crime, particularly crime related to drugs. Yet funding for child care for parents in substance abuse treatment in Baltimore was just cut.
Can our city and state afford the costs associated with the increase in child protection and foster care costs that cuts in funding for treatment will surely cause?
To improve the quality of life for our most vulnerable population, our children, we must end the freeze on hiring state child protection workers and fully implement legislation that provides substance abuse treatment on demand for parents involved with the child welfare system.
We have no children to spare.
Mindy Amor
Owings Mills
The writer co-chairs the Coalition to Protect Maryland's Children.
Is courthouse our top priority?
Doesn't the $293 million courthouse project being considered send a backward message about what our priorities are ("Court building obsolete, city told," Dec. 9)?
We have a child welfare crisis, a public housing crisis, a mental health crisis and an education crisis.
A new courthouse would assist in dealing with criminals only. What will be put in place to help the children, the homeless and the mentally ill?
Karen Kolber-Perlstein
Linthicum
'Enron syndrome' rears its head again
The day after Thanksgiving, President Bush told us that America is at war and that rank-and-file government employees would have to sacrifice one quarter of the pay hike Congress approved for 2003.
Days later, we learned that no sacrifice is necessary for highly paid political appointees. Thanks to President Bush, these appointees were given the green light for yearly bonuses of up to $25,000 ("Bonuses for political appointees are restored," Dec. 5).
This is just one more example of the "Enron syndrome" that permeates this administration: one set of rules and numbers for the elite, and another set for the rest of us.
Joseph P. Flynn
Columbia
The much-maligned President Clinton realized early in his administration that bonuses for political appointees were a bad idea. Yet not only did President Bush restart that program, he did it without notifying the press.
And the change was revealed at the same time Mr. Bush cut back the raises for federal employees, arguing that such raises would interfere with our nation's ability to pursue the war on terrorism.
This despite the fact that tens of thousands of these employees are literally on the front lines fighting the very same enemy.
I expected more from Mr. Bush.
Howard K. Ottenstein
Baltimore
Redress still needed for sting of slavery
For 300 years, black people have been troubled with trying to "get over it" ("Bold remark on reparations: 'Get over it,'" Nov. 27). And, remarkably, many blacks are still getting over it (slavery) with bad jobs, bad housing and bad education from bad schools.
The difficulty from the beginning has not been blacks, but the whites who lynched, denied jobs on a fair basis, relegated blacks to poor housing, etc. And the problem is that the whites have not had "to get over it."
Despite laws and good will from some people, blacks still have to live with "bad will" from many of the citizens who hire and fire and control people.
Redress is needed to ameliorate the sting of slavery. Until it is provided, our country will continue to have a problem with race relations.
Benjamin C. Whitten
Baltimore
The writer is a former president of the Baltimore Urban League.
New tests need clearer questions
The MSPAP tests were a well-intended attempt to make testing congruent with worthwhile curriculum goals ("Lame-duck MSPAP blamed for fickle scores," Dec. 7).
They were criticized on several grounds, but rarely on one crucial cause of low scores. As most third-, fifth- and eighth-grade teachers will attest, the worst flaw in the tests was the wording of the questions. Many of the questions were worded ambiguously, too abstractly or in syntactically convoluted fashion.
English-speaking children were, in effect, bogged down in trying to translate a foreign language - adult talk - and a version of it that wasn't very precise.
If state test-makers want to avoid the same problem on new tests, they should submit the test questions for review by experts in age-appropriate language, as well as listen to the teachers and students.
Frank Lyman
Columbia
Prostitution isn't pressing crime issue
You have to love the people of Bolton Hill.
Throughout Baltimore, drug dealers are incinerating entire families, juveniles are killing and getting killed in amazing numbers, and more than 230 people have been murdered on city streets this year. And over in Bolton Hill they are shocked, shocked that they have prostitutes working their neighborhood ("Neighbors want prostitution stopped," Dec. 6).
Would somebody please tell these folks that the world's oldest profession, while tawdry and unseemly, ranks somewhere between hubcap theft and truancy on the city's list of pressing crime issues?
Richard Pelletier
Baltimore
A welcome chance to relive big band era
It was a pleasure reading - and rereading - Carl Schoettler's article "Where jazz still echoes" (Dec. 8), and recalling scenes like those depicted in the photos.
I remember the big bands of Count Basie, Charlie Barnett, Cab Calloway, Erskine Hawkins and Jimmie Lunceford - all the great big bands of the 1930s and 1940s. It was a fabulous scene - with great interaction between the bands and their "worshippers" (be they listeners or dancers), and it made me a big band enthusiast for life.
Thanks for this opportunity to remember yet again.
Frank Littleton
Baltimore