Schools Fail Test of Time

Re “Are Schools Cheating Poor Learners?” Nov. 28:

We have spent the last 40 years dumbing down California schools. Testing is now pointing out how far we have fallen. The problem is not the test but the failed policies that have gotten us into this mess.

Testing is forcing the teachers to focus on those who have been held back by these failed policies, and yes, they will quickly rise once they are identified.

One look at the California Department of Education website will point out that Santa Ana’s Remington Elementary School is a poor school now focused on moving its students forward: 85% of its students are not proficient, 71% are English learners, 93% get free lunches, 42% are overweight and 82% of the parents did not graduate from high school.

So any child willing to move forward at this school is a success story for the poor. It takes a willing parent and a teacher to move a child forward.

To remain competitive in a world economy, the taxpayers need to use testing to force the revamping of our failed education system.

James Jones

Costa Mesa

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It is always amusing (in a perverted way) to read articles about the role of the federal government in public education.

Eugene Hickok, deputy secretary in the U.S. Department of Education, states that schools must attend to all students equally in order to ensure that the worst-performing students are steadily improving and eventually are able to pass the tests. It’s wonderful that the federal government feels that setting a rigid set of mandated tests will somehow magically improve the educational system. What is missing from this magic formula is the vital role that sufficient resources must play.

In a deficit-torn world, the federal government must spend our dwindling resources on such things as rebuilding Fallouja, leaving the No Child Left Behind program woefully underfunded.

So far, this approach has removed the love of teaching for many teachers, is in the process of removing any love of learning that children might have and has done nothing to improve the crumbling infrastructure present at many schools.

Of course, these issues are not a problem at the prestigious private schools or those affluent school districts to which, I suspect, most high government officials send their children.

Dirik Lolkus

Fountain Valley