Can relocation alter `urban nightmares'? Sun staff...

Can relocation alter `urban nightmares'?

Sun staff photographer Algerina Perna captured the nightmare of urban poverty in the vacant stare of young Denise Barber ("American dreams, urban nightmares," Oct. 9).

At the age of 15, Ms. Barber traded her own childhood to raise the first of three children.

With no high school education, no job and little help in caring for her kids, she is clearly suffering hardship from her early decisions.

With so much financial and emotional burden on her young shoulders, it is difficult to imagine how even a new address would be enough to change her life.

Mayor Martin O'Malley's challenge - and the challenge for all Americans - is to reach our kids while their eyes are still clear and hopeful; to teach them that personal sacrifice, hard work and responsibility can help them realize long-term goals.

It may be too late to free Ms. Barber from dependence on welfare, but we may be able to illuminate a better path in the eyes of her children.

Laura D. Johnston, Timonium

Denise Barber might be perceived to be a better potential middle-class neighbor if she didn't already, at age 22, have three children whom she is apparently unable to provide for without assistance.

Responsible family planning, including making sure that financial and social resources are in place before having children, is a skill that should be offered to people wishing to be relocated.

I wish Denise Barber all the best - including insight on how to take better charge of her life and the ability to pass this insight on to her children, so that her family can escape poverty for good.

Leslie Starr, Baltimore

As a resident of Northeast Baltimore for all my 39 years, I resented the following comments directed to the residents who oppose the plan to move public housing residents: "What makes them so special?" and "Put them in upper-class neighborhoods and see how they feel."

Many of my neighbors have not been given the opportunity to buy a $200,000 home for, say, $500 down.

And most of my neighbors would not accept the offer because of their strong work ethic, and love for their community.

They could not possibly accept something they hadn't worked for. That's what makes us special.

I cannot help to wonder if the young lady in the article might have avoided public housing if she had earned a high school diploma and abstained from sex until she was married.

Let's attack poverty and the public housing crisis by keeping our children in school, reducing teen-age pregnancy and providing affordable day care so single mothers can work.

Pat Szymanik, Baltimore

I read with interest The Sun's two articles concerning moving the poor from public housing projects to Hamilton.

I was especially intrigued by an idea suggested by Kizzy Hill.

She believes part of the opposition to moving people like her is middle-class snobbery.

She suggests moving the middle class to upper-class neighborhoods to make them "see how they feel."

What a novel idea: I never thought I, a middle-class homeowner, was entitled to anything other than what I've earned through my own labors.

But Ms. Hill believes people such as me should be moved (perhaps as part of an entitlement program?) to such neighborhoods as Guilford, Homeland or Mount Washington.

But we all know hers is a laughable idea. We all know living in an upper-class neighborhood is a privilege and a reward for making considerable sacrifices.

Just what makes living in a middle-class neighborhood any less of a privilege?

And why do so many think middle-class living is an entitlement?

Ed Schneider, Baltimore

MSPAP makes state's schools better

Phil Greenfield and others who question the impact of MSPAP are misinformed. Maryland's efforts in education improvement are about a great deal more than tests ("MSPAP needs impartial study," Sept. 3).

The Maryland State Department of Education's efforts are leading the way to far richer instruction, with opportunities for students to develop skills and scholarship.

Research studies recognize that teaching with an emphasis on comprehension and reasoning is most responsible for student achievement gains.

Obviously, comprehension is not taught absent basic skills. In fact, it is the intersection of higher-level thinking and learning and basic skills that has so positively transformed education in Maryland.

This transformation is a result of the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program.

The wisdom of practice of our most talented teachers should be our guiding light.

Maryland's Teachers of the Year will tell you that MSPAP not only encourages a blending of skills with important principles of inquiry, but reinforces rather than replaces the learning of the basic skills so needed by our students.