Dear Mr. President

From: June K, Mother of Joseph K
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 2:43 PM
To: president@whitehouse.gov
Subject: Support public education

Dear Mr. President,

As the mother of a teacher in the Los Angeles Public Schools, I can see what NCLB and the continuing policies of Arne Duncan are doing to the public school system.  It is becoming disastrous.  My son has always chosen to teach inner city kids who face innumerable problems of poverty, lack of any skill in the English language, minimal parental support.  At present many of his children wake up at 5:30 in the morning, some earlier, to be bussed and arrive at school more ready for bed than learning. The ride home isn’t much better.  Even the most concerned parent in the inner city can't come to their child's school for conferences, back-to-school activities, even if they could speak the language.

Also present policies seem to favor charter schools which can pick and choose their students and, not incidently add to the coffers of companies supplying testing materials, textbooks, etc.

It is essential to include parents, teachers and public school administrators in all discussion of public school policies.  It is essential to stop basing teacher performance on test scores, rather than on the individual progress of students.  Our school policies should be left in the hands of the local district, not mandated on a federal level by unfunded policies.  They best know the needs of each school in their distract.

I hope you will not reappoint Mr. Duncan and even replace him NOW before further damage is done to our schools.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

June