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Idealistic teachers stay in profession While respectfully acknowledging former teacher Julia A. Gumminger's harrowing experience in a Baltimore classroom ("City students who run amok have many victims," Commentary, April 21), I take issue with her characterization of alternative teaching programs such as Teach for America and the Baltimore City Teaching Residency as having "sky-high" dropout rates. It is a common presumption, particularly among educators and journalists, that these "young, energetic and idealistic teachers" who are "trained to be educators in a matter of weeks" are the first to flee the classroom.

Jamie Doyle was startled when her doorbell rang at 10 p.m. Saturday, but when she looked through the window of her Bel Air home, she said she was terrified to see smoke and flames nearly 3 feet high on her front porch. Someone had filled a mailbox with paper and set it ablaze. She quickly doused the fire with water and called 911. She had seen a car pull away but was too consumed with putting out the fire to get any details. "The fire was literally at my front door," said Doyle. "They must have just lit the fire when they rang the bell.