Students, Families and Successful Schools

Re “Don’t Fault Angelenos Looking for a Way Out,” Commentary, June 25: One can certainly sympathize with Shirley Svorny’s plight, but her reasoning is very faulty. She mentions “the schools’ failures,” and places the blame with the public employee unions and school administration. It is easy for her to criticize, teaching at a university where students are admitted only if they are qualified and motivated. High schools have to accept all students, no matter how disruptive, illiterate or unprepared. The schools are not failing the students, but rather the students, and their families, are failing themselves.

If we took two schools--an inner-city school and a highly successful school like Sunny Hills--and simply switched the students, not the teachers or materials, does Svorny really think that the inner-city kids would suddenly be winning admission to Harvard and nailing 1600s on the SAT? Absolutely not.

When Svorny says, “Let’s put the blame where it belongs,” she is on shaky ground. It is not the teachers or the administration that bring these problems. Let’s look at the families that fail to supply the discipline and educational support that kids so desperately need. And let’s look at our society that so unrealistically expects the schools to cure all of its ills.

BILL BOEHLERT

Huntington Beach

My friends and I are all products of the L.A. city schools. Many of us are children of immigrants who came to this country in the 1940s looking for equality. We’re in our 40s and successful (schoolteacher, judge, lawyers and a dentist).

I have put in countless hours of volunteer work to make my local school a better place to be. President Clinton spoke at our school, Mar Vista Elementary, on June 23.

At the higher levels, the better schools are the magnet schools. You are admitted to these programs by collecting “points” by attending a magnet elementary school, or you can earn extra points if you are a minority. My son has been rejected three years in a row from the nearby Science Magnet. He lives to study science. He is continually rejected because he’s a white kid whose mom was loyal to the neighborhood school.

My son has three Hispanic friends who were admitted with ease to the Science Magnet (they have no interest in science, just in collecting more magnet points to get into a better high school). A friend from Germany was admitted to the International Studies Magnet. Two friends, one from India, one from Thailand, were admitted to the Medical Magnet.

America truly is the land of opportunity for these immigrants and I applaud them. It seems that the next generation of doctors, dentists, lawyers and teachers will be minorities who received the advantages of magnet schools in the Los Angeles school system.

What’s a little white kid to do? Drop out and join a private school to receive equal treatment?

PEARL BARAK

Los Angeles