Schools in Focus as Year Nears End

I read with some alarm the June 1 article “Public Schools Deserve Good Grades, Most Say,” where a university professor polled 750 individuals on topics relating to public education.

While many of us are products of the public education system, this does not mean we are trained professional educators. Education is much too important to our country’s future to be politicized.

Our public schools have been the basis upon which our American economy has grown and has assured that all Americans have an equal opportunity.

When people talk in terms of vouchers and charter schools, it is reminiscent of the push for private academies following the integration of Southern schools. Simple answers to complex issues such as public education are inappropriate.

If parents want to improve the quality of their children’s education they must become involved in their children’s lives. They should not expect small classes or clean uniforms to do the job for them. Our public schools are clearly representative of the American melting pot where each student has an equal opportunity to become a productive citizen.

AMY D’URSO

Dana Point

* School dropout numbers statewide are official, and Orange County public schools are the best, again. Among all counties with high school enrollments over 40,000, our schools have the lowest dropout rates: 97.3% are staying in school!

Are our schools really that good? Yes. Could we do better? Of course, and we continue our efforts to reduce the number each year. It’s a matter of school pride, despite increasing enrollment: almost 20,000 more this year alone.

Two years ago, the statewide Field Poll found that Orange County parents with children in school ranked our public schools best in the state, by a wide margin. Despite lower costs per student, more than $1,000 below the national average, and larger classes, particularly at the secondary level, the quality of teaching and learning continued to be high.

Advanced placement class enrollment continues to soar and more then half of our graduating seniors sit for the Scholastic Assessment Tests and matriculate at leading colleges and universities.

Why are we so blessed? First and foremost, student satisfaction; the customer likes the product. In a county with more college graduates per capita than almost anywhere, students and their families recognize the need for a strong public education, and it is being delivered every day to about 443,000 children in Orange County.

Without question, our elementary and secondary school teachers are responding to the challenge to make their classes “the place to be.” Our responsibility as the county Department of Education is to support the teachers with materials and other resources to make their roles more effective.

Perhaps the most significant impact our department makes on the dropout statistic is providing a “place to go” for those students out of the mainstream. Our institutional, day center and community “storefront” schools enroll more than 6,000 students who, for one reason or another, just don’t fit in local district schools. Beyond district continuation high schools, our county-operated schools are the last safety net. More than 30% overcome their truancy or academic behavior and return to their district schools to continue their education.

JOHN F. DEAN

Orange County

Superintendent of Schools

* I was a guest at commencement exercises at a local institution of higher learning.

I watched as the various classes ambled across the playing field in no discernible order, batting balloons and other objects of entertainment back and forth. When the students found seats acceptable to them, they abandoned even the smallest nod to decorum and continued their games with increasing fervor.

The level of noise emanating from the graduating classes combined with the enthusiasm from the stands--there were air horns in the stands--precluded any hope of hearing what the carefully selected speakers had to say.

At one brief moment of lowered decibels, I did hear one speaker refer to the “rowdy bunch” to which she was speaking. She went on to attempt to trace the development of “civilization” from the concept of “civility,” a concept lost on the group she was addressing.

I am not in an ivory tower tall enough to assume that everyone involved in the ceremonies was uncaring and neglectful of the finer points, but I feel very strongly that lacking a sense of what is appropriate behavior in even a few individuals diminishes us all. At the same time, we cannot allow our freedoms to be curtailed in the name of tyranny, nor can we permit our freedoms to disintegrate into anarchy.

JOAN HOINESS BOUCHELLE

Mission Viejo