NYT, Failing Schools, and Monday Morning Coffee

So it's Monday. And. I'm. a. mov.ing.slow.l.y.

As I perform my Monday ritual of combing through the Times to see what news I missed over the weekend, one item has grabbed my extremly dulled attention.

I apparently missed last week's OpEd on Arne Duncan and what to do about Failing Schools.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/opinion/06mon1.html)

I am catching now, however, the Letters to the Editor in response to the wise Ol Times:

To the Editor:

Your editorial urges that more money be spent and that small-scale demonstrations be greatly enlarged. There seems to be an assumption that middle- and high school educators know how to educate underprepared students, if only they had more money. In the case of city schools’ educating concentrations of students from poor families, this is wrong.

Policy should instead be built on two undisputed foundations: only students who can read well can be educated well, and reading is a skill learned early, by third or fourth grade.

For poor children this means high-quality preschools that can help narrow the gap in vocabulary and general knowledge. It also means concentrating on early literacy instruction.

These practices have been found to work, not just in successful elementary schools, but districtwide in New Jersey, in Union City and West New York, where eighth-grade students have practically closed the gap with their suburban peers.

Congress should require that federal funds be focused on starting early and intensively with disadvantaged students, not on high schools. Make young students strong readers, and they have a fighting chance.

Gordon MacInnes
Morristown, N.J., July 6, 2009

The writer is a fellow at the Century Foundation.

(Here are more letters to the editor regading this OpEd: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/opinion/l13educ.html)

As my slow-moving brain transitions from the effects of coffee to green tea, I'll have to say is: AMEN.