Changing light bulbs

To the Editor: Coincident with the posting of new rankings for Pennsylvania’s public schools came two weeks ago another P.R.-laden letter from the Delaware Valley School District, this one about the dozen or so top students and the three or four notable college acceptances, and signed by Tom Finan. No word about the other 6,000 kids in our system. In the rankings, (see schooldigger.com), Delaware Valley is 181th. By contrast, our neighbors at Wallenpaupack are 145th. (Higher test scores, lower student to teacher ratio, etc.) In the letter, Mr. Finan says, verbatim, “With regard to your question directed towards the article in the newspaper about the S.A.T.’s, Mr. Jay Tucker, our guidance chairperson and a current member of the College Board review committee, stated that since the S.A.T.’s are relatively new and data is still being collected on the writing portion of the exam, colleges, universities, and our students generally continue to refer to the traditional math and reading portions of the S.A.T.’s for college acceptance.” That was written by our Director of Secondary Education, the second highest position in our school district. Ryan and Nicky and Kathryn compose more lucid prose. Some people -- and most lamentably some students -- in this district have gotten the ideas that school excellence is based on propaganda, not performance, and even that becoming average is a worthy goal. That’s how bad things really are here. In a few months we will have another, relatively new school board. How many school boards does it take to change a light bulb, one wonders. Tony Splendora Milford