Today's Letters: Flawed thinking on No Child law

Upgrading teachers Oct. 23, commentary 

Karin Chenoweth's argument for No Child Left Behind unfairly demeans public school teachers past and present. And her suggestion that the law holds teachers accountable is simply wrong.

As a former high school English teacher, I can assure her that even my ninth-graders would detect the many flaws in her argument. I introduced logical fallacies in the classroom such as the "false premise." For example, whoever claimed, as Chenoweth states, that universal "excellence" existed in education before No Child? My students learned that using personal experience, as Chenoweth does repeatedly to cite the many instances of poor teaching, is too narrow to be effective. They would be sorry to hear of her lazy teachers, unmotivated to succeed before the penalties No Child imposes. But they would ask whether the isolated incidents she reports really support her claim that this poor instruction was due to "no outside assessment" or if she simply encountered lazy, unprincipled adults who were unmotivated, period. They might ask if four examples of poor instruction among three people are sufficient to present a serious problem.

And these young people with sharp minds (made no sharper by having to decide on a test if the main idea of Paragraph #3 is A, B, C or D) would question Chenoweth on her "conclusion contrary to fact" (another fallacy) that No Child will remedy this. In fact, the law does not hold individual teachers accountable, but rather, assesses the success of the entire school on yearly tests.

Teachers should be held accountable by parents such as Chenoweth, by principals who visit classrooms frequently to encourage or reprimand teachers, and by themselves. The tests dictated by No Child may motivate students to at least reach minimum standards, but they will never motivate teachers to be more creative or make instruction more interesting. Suggesting that this is the way to make teachers accountable is a fallacy, and an insult to teachers.

Dana Noble, Weeki Wachee

More civility in Congress, please Oct. 21, Philip Gailey column

Congress is not doing its job

Let me take the time to say thank you to Philip Gailey. I had begun to think I was the only person who could remember when Congress got things done.

The four former Senate majority leaders are doing a great service to the American people. This partisanship that is raging in Congress has got to stop. We, the American people, are not being served by it. I am reminded that as Rome burned, the emperor did nothing. That is what is happening in America: Our elected leaders are doing nothing and not listening to the people they represent.

If the people in Congress won't listen, then we the people will have to use our only recourse - voting them out of office.

LaTreetha E. Sharpley, Spring Hill

Don't stop now on school plan Oct. 23, editorial

School plan will set us back

I am shocked to see your paper favor a plan that could lead to a return to segregated schools after 36 years of busing for integration and diversity. Just calling them "neighborhood schools" does not make them conform to the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled that separate, segregated schools are unconstitutional.

The effect of the plan on Pinellas County could be devastating, creating greater division in the community. Many black and white people of goodwill have been trying to keep Pinellas schools integrated. The proposed student assignment plan and your editorials threaten to set us back half a century.

We should listen to the voices of reason like those of School Board member Mary Brown and others who are trying to do the best for all of our children.

Harvey Morgenstein, president, Greater Pinellas Democratic Club, St. Pete Beach

A man enlists; a writer wonders Oct. 21, Perspective

A lack of leadership

It was sad to read about the death of Lt. Mark Jennings Daily in Iraq. The young man had enlisted partly in response to an article by Christopher Hitchens. That article was also printed.

But shouldn't the convincing come from our leaders? Shouldn't President Bush be promoting recruitment or even a draft? Shouldn't he be asking people to pay for the war through higher taxes and war bonds? Shouldn't he be running a unity government, bringing in Democrats to support the war effort against the evil of terrorism? No. He told us to "go shopping." He used fear to sharply divide the country just to get his party elected.

What this country needs is true leadership. And sadly, that is what Lt. Daily did not have when he went to Iraq.

David L. Beaven, Clearwater

Deaths in Iraq show a decline Oct. 24, story

Little progress in Iraq

In this article, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch is quoted: "I've never been more optimistic than I am right now with the progress we've made in Iraq."

Unfortunately, this AP report failed to elaborate on the U.N. refugee data noted briefly at the close of the article: "The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday that between 1,000 and 2,000 Iraqis still leave their homes each day for havens in Iraq or neighboring nations."

As Samantha Power wrote in Time magazine on Oct. 8, since the invasion more than 2.5-million Iraqis have left for neighboring countries, while 2.2-million have been forcibly displaced within Iraq. Each month, 60,000 Iraqis are voting with their feet against the surge of U.S. forces.

And, Power notes, in the four years since the war we have settled fewer than 1,700 Iraqis on American soil.

So much for progress.

Ann R. Haendel, St. Pete Beach

Intro to white people Oct. 21, Perspective

Trouble fitting in

Rubbing elbows with whites isn't all it's cracked up to be. I've been white for a little more than 58 years. I think of myself as an expert on the subject.

The problem for me is white people are never satisfied with your whiteness unless it's a perfect copy of themselves. My first exposure to this phenomenon was back in the early '60s when Pinellas schools imported speech teachers from the North to train us how to lose our drawls. And it worked, because I sound like I'm from Iowa or Wisconsin. No one suspects I'm seventh-generation Floridian. What Pinellas schools taught me is white skin isn't enough to be as white as I need to be.

Consequently, Eric Deggans can't be more wrong when he asserts that exposure to whites is helpful. And the reason for this is because fitting in with one or 20 or a million whites is never enough. Every white you meet has his own standard. So the effort to fit in is futile. About the time you start thinking you know the dance, someone changes the rules.

James B. Johnson, Port Richey

[Last modified October 27, 2007, 20:29:15]