I wouldn't care if the student requested a meeting with President Obama and Congress, the rule would be upheld and respected. Sticking to the decision would caution other children in the future against habitual lateness.
Shame on you, Ms. Ackerman!
Lenise Johnson, Wilmington, Del.
Women's electoral triumphs
While I found Will Bunch's piece on the lagging number of female officeholders in Pennsylvania very interesting, there are a number of arenas in which women have excelled in public service and political life in the Keystone State.
Pennsylvania women have remarkable influence in the commonwealth's judicial branch. While there may be no female presence on the ticket for governor or senator this year, four of the state's nine members of Commonwealth Court, 10 of 14 of Superior Court and two of seven of the Supreme Court are women elected statewide to these positions.
Women have also had a tremendous record of electoral success over their male counterparts to lower courts, especially in Philadelphia. Four of seven candidates elected to the Court of Common Pleas here in 2009 were women, as were three of four elected in 2007, three of eight in 2005 and seven of 11 in 2003.
And female officeholders have been among the most important, transformational figures in the last half-century in Pennsylvania. Catherine Baker Knoll, my former boss and mentor, broke the glass ceiling as the first woman elected into the executive branch as our first female lieutenant governor in 2002, after being elected as state treasurer in 1988 and '92.
Barbara Hafer was the first woman nominated for governor by a major party in 1990 when she was chosen by the GOP. She also built a record of success as Allegheny County commissioner and won four statewide general elections for treasurer and auditor general. Genevieve Blatt was elected numerous times as secretary of internal affairs (no longer elected), and Grace Sloan was elected multiple times as state treasurer. All of these women were trailblazers for female candidates both in Pennsylvania and across the nation.
Perhaps the situation is not as bleak as it may seem to those who read Bunch's story.
Nathan R. Shrader
Philadelphia
