Bush School Proposal: Teach Basics and Test

* Re “Bush Delivers Plan for School Accountability,” Jan. 24:

I am not denying the importance of improved math and reading, as well as the reduction of violence in schools. However, I am sick of the arts being ignored when considering public school reform. I went to a high school that had excellent music and drama departments. I remember troubled students, prone to drugs and violence, finding inspiration and a sense of unity with our choir. It was hip for the jocks to participate in the drama department’s musical. Thanks to my participation in both, I quit smoking behind the library.

Nothing is a cure-all. However, every time I read the profiles of troubled students who cause school violence, I ask myself two questions: When did the funding for the arts stop at their school? Would these otherwise sensitive kids be in drama or music instead of being bomb makers?

ANDREA VON BARGEN

Los Angeles

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President Bush has suggested that a student who is tested and passes in the third grade and fails the test in the eighth grade somehow has given his or her parents the right to ask, “Who do I hold accountable? What went wrong? Where did the system let me down?” Those parents would do better to ask themselves, “Where have I been the last five years?”

My wife and I have asked the questions every night through three children: “Do you have any homework? How was school today? Can I see your homework when you’re done and review it with you?” Teachers and schools are not the front line, but parents are. A parent who does not take interest in his or her child’s education and expects an individual called a teacher or an institution called a school to be responsible totally for that child’s education is not a parent but a cop-out and a buck passer.

The hours, days, months and years my wife and I have given to make sure our children have gotten a good education have been worth every minute, and I guarantee you that if my child has a problem with a teacher or a school, I will be at the office first thing in the morning to find out what’s going on and work to resolve the situation. There is no blame, only lack of responsibility by individuals, and testing is only a yardstick, not a solution to why children cannot read or do mathematics.

ROBERT KNOX

Downey