Page One

To the Editor: 

For the past six years, I’ve been going to school with struggling kids at King Middle School and Berkeley High School, tutoring them and otherwise helping them out whenever they needed it. I’ve seen creative, motivated people develop projects which start out with lots of enthusiasm, but wither for lack of support or funding or who knows what. Berkeley has no shortage of good ideas and willingness to experiment on our school kids. We could use more discipline in sticking with projects and ironing out their wrinkles, instead of abandoning them in favor of jumping on the next bright idea. 

Tom Bates’s proposal of an “educational summit” sounds like an election campaign invitation for more experimentation. Tom Bates may want a conference to catch himself up on what’s going on in education today, but if he had been involved in Berkeley’s public schools in the six years since he retired from the Assembly, he wouldn’t need an educational summit. There is so much going on that could have used his and other citizens’ support. For example, Check and Connect, a project that proved effective in other cities, monitored attendance of high school students and connected floundering youth with mentors. It floundered itself for lack of mentors. If Tom Bates’ call for an emergency reunion of his friends in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. is a sincere effort to help Berkeley’s public schools, why didn’t he offer this help during the past six years? 

Cynthia Hecker