Keep the special in specialized schools

Brooklyn: I attended Brooklyn Tech and I’m a former junior high school teacher. Based on my experience in both areas, I can tell you that if a student is admitted to a specialized high school and is not able to academically perform to the standards of the school, they will be demoralized and fail. The school will also be forced to devote more resources to student remediation at the expense of maintaining its high standards.

Something else to consider is that teacher evaluation and student grades are not objective criteria. Their significance differs from school to school, depending on the teacher, the school, the neighborhood, etc. Bottom line: You’re not doing a kid or the school any favor by getting them into a specialized high school if he/she can’t academically keep up with the rest of the kids. They will spend most of their time in remediation classes or fail and maybe even drop out, all with adverse psychological consequences.

The city would be better off spending its limited resources on improving student performance in the lower grades so students can better perform on the SHSAT exam when the time comes. P.S.: My family was poor, and I did not receive specialized tutoring for the SHSAT. I passed it on my own. That’s the way it should be.

Tamarac, Fla.: Re “Minor infractions up” (Sept. 22): My time as an NYPD officer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, during the late 1970s had me practice my personal broken-windows theory before social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling introduced the concept in 1982. When I was assigned my Post 69, I knew I had to........

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