Student body transplant

For 38 years, I taught in a middle school near the Julia Richman High School in New York and was well aware of the school's problems during its difficult years. In "Divide and Conquer" (May), Thomas Toch describes what is clearly a very successful transformation of that school into six more manageable units each with a separate and positive philosophy and approach. Yet, this transformation was accomplished by bringing in a new administration, professional staff, and new students. And therein lies the rub. Too often when I hear of the transformation of a school, that change is accompanied by the selection of a new student population. Regardless of what selection process is used to choose new students, I wonder what happens to the students and the staff who were displaced. They do not simply disappear.

If a system as large and diverse as that of New York City wishes to be successful, not just ill experimental schools, but in all schools, someone has to come up with a plan which would transform a school maintaining the same teachers and the same students. I concede the necessity, in many cases, to provide new top management.

HERBERT GREENHUT

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