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Blaming others won't close black achievement gap

Re: Learning gap may rekindle lawsuit, Jan. 13.

The recent - and really ongoing - allegations from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others that African-American students don't achieve in Pinellas classrooms because the system continues to fail and ignore them is an absolute joke. As a high school teacher, I have noted that where there is an observable "achievement gap," the source of the problem frequently starts at home. This is where the sad story truly begins and ends.

Parents who don't emphasize reading and writing skills at home, as well as parents who don't commit themselves to their own children's education by holding their chidren accountable for poor attendance, inconsistent work habits, and discipline matters have little credibility. Kids lacking grade-level skills or accountability for their own actions will never achieve at the same rate unless there is a firm hand at home. Yet, despite this core reality, there are programs, courses and initiatives offered to help.

If they were truly being responsible and loving community leaders, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund would develop support groups and parenting networks for those with struggling or failing kids. The schools and classroom teachers in our county continue to examine and to modify instructional methods and responsibilities, year after year. If parents - of all colors and races - would simply parent their children more often and set the tone for learning, then the students that they become will have a whole new world of opportunity.

Blaming others in this matter has proven to be a 20-year dead-end. Just ask Bill Cosby.

School resources are the same for all

Re: Learning gap may rekindle lawsuit.

I think that every student has been given a free education. What he or she does with it is not a black or white issue, as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund would lead you to believe. At Clearwater High we tailor programs for everyone. We are very well diversified so that the education programs really work on an everyday basis for those who participate in them.

How about making the parent or the student responsible? Isn't it a choice to succeed? Does it take a lawsuit to make a child succeed? Students don't care about lawsuits, nor do they need to hear how they are not succeeding. Why is the "learning gap" just an issue for blacks students? What about Hispanics, Asians and, for that matter, Bosnians? Why use the School Board to resolve cultural issues?

How about a few more black mentors so black students can be inspired for themselves? The success of any student comes from within as much as from school resources, which are the same ones all students have at their disposal.

Teachers should be angry

Re: Learning gap may rekindle lawsuit.

Where are the teachers and the teachers union? They should be insulted and screaming their heads off about this. When the NAACP Legal Defense Fund says the school district is not working agressivly enough, they are speaking to you. Where are the black and white teachers standing together against these allegations?

It is hard for me to believe any teacher would say they teach specifically to white or black students. Teachers teach subjects , like math, English, social studies, history, foreign languages.

Stand up for your underpaid selves. You deserve more credit and pay. Students and parents, you too have responsibilities.

School system not the problem

Re: Learning gap may rekindle lawsuit.

As a third-generation American, I am sick of hearing about the alleged educational failures of the Pinellas County school system relative to black students. The problem is not the school system. The problem is parents and students that do not take advantage of educational opportunities.

My Croatian grandfather came to America at age 32 unable to speak English and raised nine children by working in coal mines. My father was the first in his family to graduate from college because his parents insisted that he work hard in and out of school to make a better life for himself and his family. He became a teacher and instilled in me a work ethic that inspired me to become a doctor. Nothing was handed to my grandfather, my father or myself but the opportunity to work and go to school.

Now my daughter, a Croatian/Jamaican, goes to Lakewood High School. She is doing well because she has been taught what my father and grandfather taught me. I go to parents' night with her. I talk to her teachers in person and online. I introduced myself to the Lakewood administrators and they know I am interested in my daughter's education. We are taking advantage of the opportunities presented to us by the Pinellas County schools. Although I have many friends of all colors, I do not pretend to know what it is to be black, but I do know what it is to be poor and a minority.

I believe opportunities are there for all of our children, but it starts at home. I know of no child who has walked into any Pinellas County school and been told, "Go home, there is nothing here for you."

It's a dependent life form

Re: Democrats' inconsistency, letter, Jan. 13.

Of course abortion is the ending of a life. I don't need the letter writer or any other prolifer to explain the obvious. But until Dr. Lodovico Balducci, or his medical colleagues, can determine just how this dependent life-form can develop without having to be "hosted" by a human female, abortion will remain the only solution for women who don't wish to provide incubation space for unwanted "guests."

A cogent summation

Re: Democrats' inconsistency, letter.

Sometimes a writer sends in such a well written and cogent letter that it should be seconded and the paper praised for printing it. This is a reference to the Jan. 13. letter from Lodovico Balducci, M.D., which in three coruscating paragraphs took 600 years of human experience with life and put it into resonant and living print.

Thanks to the Times for printing it and thanks to you, Dr. Balducci, for the lux et veritas.

Paradise in pictures

Thank you very, very much for the colorful and beautiful pictures you display at the top of the Classified section each day.

We recently moved here and I save the nature pictures daily in a small photo album for our grandson to enjoy and learn about Florida birds and animals when he visits from Pennsylvania. He may want to share them with his classmates and I'll start a new book. I look forward each day for a photo of paradise (lovely Florida).

[Last modified January 17, 2006, 01:25:19]