Scholars in question

To the editor: Recently in my mail came, anonymously, a missive from DV’s district office, the contents of which revealed that the Finans have produced 27 AP Scholars, an all-time high for Delaware Valley. Upon googling “ap scholar numbers,” I learned immediately that the Anne Arundel County public schools right here across the border in Maryland proudly trumpet 600 AP Scholars this year. Given, AA is a school district larger than DV, but not orders of magnitude larger. So now I don’t know if the unsigned epistle was sent by bureaucrats so benighted that they don’t know 27 is a dismally low number for a school system this size, or if someone at the district office is trying to sink the Finans by revealing such embarrassing information. In any case, your article about Mrs. Finan’s experience at substituting an English class and being surprised and disappointed that the students do not read brings an irony of its own. Imagine Mrs. Finan’s surprise and disappointment when she learns that she is personally responsible, as superintendent of schools, for the reading habits of the students in her charge. Or, worse, that her husband is siphoning reading funds to finance his pyrrhic victories on the field. As Mr. Troiano wrote in your pages, education contains no mysteries. Put your resources in the classroom and you get academic results; invest in athletics and you get sports results. Baseball championship, anyone? Please don’t attack the messenger. I’m not making this stuff up. Tony Splendora Milford