Quality Education

Public schools, charter schools have same goal Last year, I was a guest at an event for an East Baltimore charter school that is trying to open this fall. I was invited because the charter school movement and programs such as Children's Scholarship Fund Baltimore, a school choice program, have always been mutually supportive. Our goals are the same: a quality education for our children. A speaker at the event said, "This charter school will be good for the students, the parents and even Baltimore City public schools.

Board at FaultThe Sun's editorial ''The Berger Buyout'' was right on target.Shame on the citizens and educators of Baltimore County if its board of education isn't held accountable to explain its actions. I cannot believe the board of education hates teachers so much that they brought in someone like Stuart Berger, who already had a negative history from Kansas and Frederick County.Can't change evolve? Must it be a bloody revolution? Mr. Berger calls the buyout ''foolish.'' I say we are foolish if the board of education is permitted to just go on with business as usual.

What it takes to overhaul public schoolsThe concept that American education needs an overhaul was correctly stated in the report ''A Nation At Risk,'' a critique of education in the 1980s.The rapid changes in technology, mass communication and other areas of learning require a change in our educational system.The trick, however, is to get positive results. Certainly, mastery of the fundamentals should be a prime concern. Quality education should teach not only what the student wants to learn, but also what the student must know to function in an ever-more complex society.

Parent dissatisfied with school boardFrom: Cindy PaulHanoverWith respect to all parents in Anne Arundel County, this letter is in response to all the letters that appeared in The Anne Arundel County Sun July 22 and Aug. 2.Let me begin with: I do not and will not label myself an unethical or ethical parent simply by virtue of being a parent of children within the Anne Arundel County school system. I am, however, a concerned, loving parent who is no longer willing or able to have the mental, physical and educational needs (during school hours)

Just Whose Kids Are These, Anyway?The information which has been given out about education by the Carroll County Citizens for Quality Education (CCCQE) has been accurate, whether Gary Dunkleberger, the director of curriculum and staff development for the county's public schools, wants to admit it or not.A phone call to the state Board of Education will verify why all outcomes look alike. The answer is they came from a governor's meeting in 1989 where the outcomes were drafted and agreed upon.

From: Robert S. WagnerCounty CouncilDistrict EI am writing in response to a letter to the editor published in last week's edition of The Harford County Sun, "Wagner: Wake Up."Ellen Cutler authored the letter, which chastised me fortaking realistic analysis of the question of building a vast amount of new schools in our county.The scenario I am trying to avoid isthat of having many schools built and not having the student population to fill them in 10 years. All of the projections by the Board of Education only reflect population growth for the upcoming six years.

Thursday, in Rome, the pope asked for forgiveness for child sexual abuse by clergy, while in Baltimore, the archbishop asked for money for parochial schools. And thus we had, on one day, the confluence of two streams of Catholic consciousness that have been flowing briskly this spring: a church whose leadership for decades tolerated immeasurable abuse of children claiming the noble desire to continue educating them. In March, Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien announced the closings of 13 more schools in Baltimore and Baltimore County, setting off protests and an impassioned but fruitless effort by parents, students and alumni of the Cardinal Gibbons School to save their beloved high school.

Here's a revealing quote from Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien on the closings of 13 Catholic schools in Baltimore and Baltimore County: "This is my challenge for my tenure here. It's not one that I expected, not one that I would have wanted, but it's not one that I can avoid, and will not avoid." Not one that he expected? Closing schools, including Cardinal Gibbons High, didn't come up in the exit chat with his predecessor? You mean to tell me that, while Cardinal William Keeler showed the new archbishop the restored -- at a conservatively estimated cost of $34 million -- Basilica of the Assumption, he didn't mention the looming financial crisis in the schools of the premier see?

COLLEGE PARK -- It's beautiful down here, if you can afford it. On a lovely sunlit morning, students at this University of Maryland campus walk to class as though barely staggered by the record-breaking tuition hikes of the Ehrlich years, and they live in dormitories whose fees have risen to resemble hotel bills. All of this makes it particularly striking to see banners strung proudly in numerous locations here. The banners proclaim: "Graduates more African-American students than any other Top 20 public university."