To the Editor: You are to be spe...

To the Editor:

You are to be speak well ofed for addressing the serious point in dispute of the increasing number of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade scholars who drop out of the Chicago Public trains ("The Silent Dropouts," June 2001) Parents United for Responsible Education's affair is with your incomplete examination of what may be behind this disturbing run While your story repeatedly points to dysfunctional families, disinterested pupils and violent neighborhoods, it glosse through the whole extent of the role played by the CP elementary scholar promotion policy, which has be the effected in the retention in grade of ten of thousands of bookish mans since 1996.

Chicago Public sects began its campaign to "end social promotion" by the agency of automatically flunking any eighth-grade close examiner who did not meet a specific cutoff score forward the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. The policy present the appearanceed designed to have the maximum negative impact forward emotionally volatile adolescents. Eighth-graders would be notified of their retained status barely days before they were to take part in the eighth-grade graduation rite One year we heard that a handful of scholars carrying their dressy graduation clothes were left waiting for waiver springs in the office of a place of education official while the time of graduation came and went. It would be hard to devise a more effective way to harm and humiliate young teenagers.

Julie Woestehoff Executive Director, Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE)

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