Letters To The Editor

PARENTS AND SCHOOLS

Your Feb. 20 editorial is exactly right in stating, "Schools that get the best results have the most parental support."

Parent involvement is difficult because parents are often confused and intimidated with school systems that are large, impersonal and unresponsive. And parent involvement is especially difficult for parents whose children are not successful in school - the child who is struggling or bored, the child who gets into trouble or the child who has fallen behind and sees no way to succeed. Parents of these children often consider themselves to be failures and find it hard to support a school which never has anything positive to say to them.

We at Parents Union wholeheartedly agree with your editorial. A clear message needs to be sent from the superintendent to every school and every teacher which says that involved parents are essential to student success. And then the message must be conveyed to every parent that the education of their child really is a partnership between parent and school.

Harriet Carter

Kathe Zepernick

Co-Chairpersons

Parents Union for Public

Schools

Philadelphia

DEIFYING THE RIGHT

Frank MacGeehan's deification of the right wing and tirade against Signe Wilkinson would've made me angry if it hadn't been so laughable.

No one is forcing you to read the Daily News.

As for the Democrats having caused the deficit, get real! Have you been in hibernation for nine years? It wasn't the Dems who cut domestic programs down to the bone so the macho meatheads at the Pentagon could get state-of-the-art missiles.

There were never this many homeless until "Mr. B-Movie" and his rapacious gang got control of the White House.

T. Harvey

STONE AND THE PLO

Re Chuck Stone's Feb. 20 column, "New Voices in Israel Palestinian Dialogue:"

Agreed, there should be a Jewish and Palestinian state. Rabbi Baruch and Abie Nathan are in the minority when it comes to negotiating with the PLO (Arafat & Co.) You state that a poll of officials in major Jewish communities in the U.S. show a 74 percent (I question the polls and the percentage) approval of a private discussion between Israel and "moderate" (your quotation marks) PLO officials. Substitute the word Palestinian for PLO and you have a deal. In dealing with Arafat & Co., he would start for the finger, go for the hand and continue until he would reach the throat.