How Not to Improve Education System

In reading the Nov. 15 letter, “In Search of Ways to Improve Our Schools,” I was enraged. Being a son of an immigrant and currently attending Bravo Medical Magnet High School, it angers me to know that people think of me as a nuisance and problem to our schools.

My father came to the U.S. as a Mexican immigrant, searching for a better future. He worked as a bracero in the fields of Texas. He especially worked for our education, which he hoped would allow us to have a better life.

My brother, who has graduated from Columbia University, gives his thanks to my father, whose sweat has clearly paid off. I am not a nuisance and I am not a problem to our schools.

Abraham Rivas

Los Angeles

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Re U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige’s compliments to California’s hard-working teachers (letter, Nov. 13): I teach third grade in a low-income school. We just scraped by on the No Child Left Behind tests this year.

Lucky for us, because last year our school of 1,000 students “failed.” We passed in 15 of 16 subgroups, but we needed two more black males to score “proficient” in math. Kind of arbitrary and meaningless, you might say, but if we hadn’t passed this year, we would have lost serious money.

So I just want to say to Secretary Paige: Thanks for the compliment, but no thanks. Our school was improving before this law came along, and this law has only made our jobs more difficult.

This law is forcing us to emphasize test-preparation at the expense of developing critical thinking, not to mention fostering a love of learning or promoting citizenship. That’s what happens when you measure every school based on one test, and punish every school that doesn’t “pass.”

But then again, I don’t see much evidence the Bush administration wants an informed citizenry full of critical thinkers. After all, then they’d all be forced to resign.

Kevin Schaaf

Hawthorne