To the editor:

Every child should learn reading, writing and math. If the neighborhood school has too few students, the schools should be consolidated into one neighborhood school. New buildings shouldn’t be built. The schools not in use should be sold and the money turned back to the school system and accounted for in the budget.

A vocational school should meet the needs of those who are not mentally capable of taking college courses. A trade is a good thing to have to earn wages for a living. This may be the answer to the “No child should be left behind” motto.

That includes special-education children too. The closet-type arrangement for discipline management at South Junior High was supposed to have gone out with the Middle Ages. KU is supposed to be specializing in autism. So, I’d expect our school teachers to get some tips on how to deal with this disability as well as others. They always go to workshops. So why not learn about this? Did you ever hear of the IDEA law?

If you didn’t, I’d suggest that you look into it. That law states that “any child with a disability has a right to a public education.”

This is why there’s a drop in public school attendance, home schooling, private schools and parents too frustrated to cope with the “system” that’s inefficient.

Mary Ann Kieffer,

Lawrence