Dear Editor
Dear Editor Brandt at Home It is understandable, of course, that West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's conservative opponents should take to accusing him of "neglect of domestic problems"...
...NL, June 14...
...Not only New Leftists and black militants have sought to right social wrongs via the public schools...
...EDGAR ROBBINS Africa Revisited Jonathan Kwitny's "Africa Through Crimson Glasses" (NL, June 14) is a telling critique of the biases and oversimplifications that distort the Leftist view of Africa...
...As Mar-golis explains, it is organized along "free school"* lines, "substitutes informal, open-ended seminars for conventional classroom instruction...
...Bremen LUDWIG SCHMIDT George Washington Richard J. Margolis' admirably balanced report, "The George Washington Story" (NL...
...It is reported to have been remarkably successful in "turning on habitual truants...
...Unfortunately, it appears there is little chance that programs like the Academy will be expanded, at least not next year...
...The only wonder is that more big-city high schools are not under siege...
...Many of the teachers, coming from the middle class and frequently commuting from the suburbs, find it difficult at best to relate to pupils whose entire life experience differs radically from their own...
...Dear Editor Brandt at Home It is understandable, of course, that West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's conservative opponents should take to accusing him of "neglect of domestic problems" (Hansjuergen Rosenbauer...
...Yet in demonstrating that Africa's problems are not all caused by whites, Kwitny ignores the continuing damage inflicted by neocolonialism and imperialism...
...and "gives students a voice in shaping their own curriculum...
...Certainly the solution to the internal difficulties of these new nations will not be provided by those who would reclaim the white man's burden...
...The most promising solution is the kind of experimental program that George Washington has undertaken with its new Academy...
...June 14...
...New Orleans, La...
...New York City PHILLIP PAULSON I could not agree more with Richard J. Mar-golis' assessment of the dissident parents' actions in the George Washington High School crisis: "Revolution is no substitute for education...
...His social programs have included insurance for schoolchildren and workers, increased retirement benefits, and a more equitable tax structure...
...illustrates the kind of problems that are bound to result when large numbers of culturally and economically disadvantaged children are fed into an overcrowded urban school system...
...What better way to attack his obvious foreign policy victories...
...It is time adults faced their responsibilities and stopped behaving like children so that children may be free to behave like children...
...The George Washington Story" gives us a good picture of what the ultimate social cost of this kind of false economizing will be...
...A glance at the record, however, shows that the charge is patently false...
...With an increased student-teacher ratio, and a decreased investment in educational facilities, there will be more dropouts, less learning and —if past trends continue—more trouble in the schools...
...the Federal government and Supreme Court have been more inclined to let children lead us to social justice than to effect the necessary institutional changes in the adult world...
...New York City JAMES MADDEN...
...He leaves no doubt that the optimism prevalent on the Left at the time of the independence movement is in need of revision...
...Its major shortcoming is that its enrollment is limited to 40—a mere handful of those who need such special attention...
...Faced with a $75-million budget cut, the Board of Education estimates it will be forced to get by with 5,700 fewer teachers come September, and "nonessential" projects will have to be trimmed...
...Since assuming office in 1969 as a self-proclaimed "Chancellor of domestic reform," Brandt has enacted more progressive legislation than did any of his postwar predecessors in a comparable period of time...
...After the Crisis...
...The traditional curriculum is unsuited to these students' needs and unresponsive to their particular backgrounds...
...And then the computers invariably make a shambles of even the best-laid programming plans...
Vol. 54 • July 1971 • No. 14
