CHARTERS’ SUCCESS
It was very upsetting
to read your recent piece on charter schools (“So Tell Me Again: Why Are We
Doing This?” March 9). There are so many places in
which I disagree with you, I hardly know where to
begin.
           I have
three children who attend the GeneseeCommunityCharterSchool. You dismiss its success
with a wave of your pen, yet in many ways this school is an example of the
kinds of changes you advocate. GCCS — which is open to all city residents —
is so good that suburban families also seek to get their children in. Thus it
has a mixed student body that contributes to the success of the school.
           While I
agree that a county-wide system is worth exploring, the chances of achieving
such a system are slim. What we can do is build more schools like GCCS and Eugenio Maria de Hosta so that
more children, city and suburban, can derive the benefits. That is what charter
schools can do.
           By freeing
schools from the bureaucracy of the CitySchool District, we open up the
possibilities of what they can be. This gives us the opportunity to provide
different models of schools to address the needs of different kinds of children
and families.
           The other
major point you make that I disagree with — and this seems to be a prevalent
media opinion this season — is that two failed schools equals a failed
movement. We have two successful schools. Does that not equal a successful
movement?
           Charter
schools are given flexibility and autonomy in exchange for accountability. The
idea is that if a school is not successfully educating its students, it should
close. Whether or not we agree that these schools were not working, it was
responsibility of the Board of Regents to close the schools if they determined
them to be failing. Public schools face no such consequences.
           There are,
of course, many debates about how one determines the success of a school and whether
test scores are truly the diagnostic tools they are purported to be. However,
the bottom line is that the closing of underperforming schools proves the
success of the charter school movement, not its failure.
           The
majority of the charter schools statewide are succeeding. We have two good
charter school choices in Rochester
and a third opening this fall that will have the chance to prove itself. Let us support a movement that is trying to offer
urban students more, different, and better choices.
           Marcy Berger, 293 Mulberry Street, Rochester
PARENTS DESERVE CHARTER OPTION
In response to Mary Anna Towler’s
report on charter schools: Although I agree with her regarding the struggles
facing city school districts — and even agree that integrating the county’s
schools is a solution — I do not agree that charter schools are not a
worthwhile alternative for city school students.
           She writes
that Eugenio Maria de Hostos
School has a higher percentage of students coming from poor families (75
percent) than the LeadershipAcademy
(67 percent) or the School of Science
and Technology (70 percent), yet Eugenio Maria de Hostos was able to show progress and get its charter
renewed. There are obviously differences among the charter schools as well as
between the charter schools and the public schools. Perhaps we could look at
what is being done at Eugenio Maria de Hostos and incorporate the successful techniques into the
city public schools.
           Ms. Towler
reports that test scores at Genesee Community are impressive and that only 16
percent of the students come from poor families. Student enrollment at Genesee
Community is determined by application and then lottery, so
perhaps as more articles are written on GeneseeCommunitySchool
more people will become aware of it and the student population will change to
better reflect the district’s overall population. Then we will know if the
success there is based on student population, teaching style, or a combination
of both.
           In the
meantime, as a city parent of an incoming kindergarten student in the 2005-2006
school year, I was happy for the choice of a charter
school for my child, and think all parents deserve that option.
           Darla Spafford-Davis,
Yarmouth
Road, Rochester
THE DANGER ON OUR PORCHES
Showing now at the High
Falls Gallery (through May 1) is a photo exhibit entitled “Front
Porch.” Created jointly by Neighborhood Housing Services and South East
Arts Development, it is a celebration of those most fabulous features of our
community’s wonderful old homes.
           Front
porches have always been the best places to while away a summer afternoon, the
best places to congregate with family and friends, to greet the neighbors. The
front porch is the place to relax, to rejuvenate, and to build bonds with all
the people in your life. But like the plot of a bad horror movie, lurking
literally beneath all this front-porch goodness is an invisible danger so
insidious that it can cause permanent neurological damage in our children. This
damage, caused from lead-based paint, often leads to severe and irreversible
learning disabilities and even impulse-control problems that can lead to crime
and violence.
           Of all the
places in a home that endanger children because they contain lead-based paint,
the front porch is one of the worst. This is because lead-based paint dust and
chips are most likely to be stirred up in the high-traffic areas of the house.
Any house built before 1978 can harbor this danger. And almost all houses built
before 1950 — meaning the overwhelming majority of homes in the City of Rochester
— have it. Many of the homes that have it the worst house
low-income children under the age of 6, the population most vulnerable to lead
poisoning.
           But while
every day more children are poisoned, the good news is that we know how to
solve the problem. The challenge is not technical. Rather, it is a challenge of
education, of policy, and of resources directed expeditiously to the problem.
What we still lack, despite great strides in recent years, is the policy, the
money, and the people-power to end this scourge.
           If we are
really serious about protecting and investing in our children, and if we are
serious about growing our economy, we must dedicate enough resources to
educating homeowners, tenants, and landlords about lead poisoning. We need more
funding to train and hire the additional workers needed to fix the tens of
thousands of homes in our community where kids are being and will be poisoned.
           We can draw
those new workers from neighborhoods where people most need good jobs and whose
children are most bedeviled by the lead problem. This is not only creative and
equitable but sensible economic development. It creates jobs and also makes the
best possible preventive investment in our community’s future.
           When we
solve the lead paint problem, we can celebrate our front porches in a
spectacular new way — because they’ll no longer be places that poison our
children.
           Information
about this issue and the Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning is available at
www.leadsafeby2010.org.
           Evan Lowenstein, Arlington Street, Rochester (Lowenstein is a volunteer
with the Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning.)
BAY TREE RAVES
In response to Adam
Wilcox’s review of the Bay Tree (“The Mysteries of Mr. Hun,” March 9): Our
dining experience there was one of the most pleasurable we have had in Rochester.
The restaurant is intimate and elegant. I cannot overstate how beautifully the
food was presented and how absolutely delicious it was.
           The option
of bringing your own wine was a delight for us, as not enough restaurants carry
our award-winning New YorkState
wines even though we are a stone’s throw from the Finger Lakes
wine region. I felt our dinner was easily worth the price and could hold its
own with many of the so-called “fine dining” restaurants in town. The lighting
could be toned down some, making the restaurant a little softer. As for
parking, we were told they have a few parking spaces at several generous
neighborhood businesses. Don’t let parking keep you from trying this really
wonderful restaurant.
           Candice Rogers, Harper Street, Rochester
ROCHESTER, NOW
Having emigrated to Rochester
in the late 1940s, I am indeed blessed to have lived in this fine community.
           A Rochester
characterized by a superior system of public education; beautiful nearby parks;
public and corporate-sponsored programs, from the KodakPark athletic association to the
VFW; benevolent and public-minded employers who made possible a middle-class
lifestyle for most, and a vibrant downtown accessible by a 15-minute bus or
subway ride….
           Contrast
this with contemporary Rochester: a
moribund downtown, decaying public schools, a pit-bull politician concerned
only with winning elections, gerrymandered state politicians with sinecures,
and a Gannett press totally devoid of historical memory editorially espousing
positions it refuses to follow.
           While
critical in the past of City’s reflexive
PC liberalism, I honestly feel that a single issue of your publication contains
more newsworthy items than are to be found in months of the Democrat and Chronicle. Specifically, in
the March 9 issue sports columnist Mike Doser deals
with Bills quarterback JP Losman. Contrast this with
desk-bound Gannett columnists commenting on baseball-football-basketball
statistics and the “athletes” who bowl, golf, and wrestle professionally.
           On the same
page, editor Mary Anna Towler cuts to the chase
regarding public education. To wit: What makes Harvard great is not its faculty
but its students. She echoes what Andy Rooney said some years back on “60
Minutes”: “What makes good schools is good kids.”
           Or, as a
former CitySchool
District administrator told me, in an unguarded
moment some 20 years ago: “All we are doing is rearranging the deck chairs on
the Titanic.” Increased spending on urban education without unpalatable
systemic change only serves to fatten the pockets of suburbaniteCitySchool District
employees and administrators.
           City has become a lone “candle in the
wilderness.”
           Ian Lennon, Beresford Road, Rochester
WRITING TO CITY
We welcome and
encourage readers’ letters for publication. Send them to:
themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester14607.
           Our
guidelines: We don’t publish anonymous letters — and we ask that you include
your street name and city/town/village. We don’t publish letters that have been
sent to other media — and we don’t
publish form letters generated by activist groups. While we don’t restrict
length, letters of under 350 words have a greater
chance of being published. We do edit letters for clarity and brevity. And in
general we don’t publish letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces) from the same
writer more often than about once every two months.
More mail on page 4: the charter-school issue.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2005.
