‘The End of Mayoral Control’

It was always a comforting delusion that the mayor possessed the wherewithal somehow lacking in the members of the Board of Education [Oped, “The End of Mayoral Control,” March 2, 2007].

But New Yorkers had to learn their lesson the hard way that the ills afflicting the nation’s largest school district can only begin to be addressed through a democratic — not autocratic — process.

Even then, however, the huge disparity in income between residents that was documented in a news article in the same issue as Andrew Wolf’s column serves as a stark reminder of the task ahead.

Socioeconomic factors play too important of a role in student performance to be overcome by the best teachers working under the most enlightened board.

WALT GARDNER
Los Angeles, Calif.

‘Forgetting The Past Is Fool’s Game’

Thank you for Alicia Colon’s article, which highlights the continued, if unpleasant, relevance of the Holocaust to today’s political landscape [New York, “Forgetting The Past Is Fool’s Game,” March 13, 2007].

I would just like to critique Ms. Colon’s use of the term “Orthodox Jews” to refer to the madmen who went to Iran to support Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his Holocaust-denial.

Orthodox Jewry is strongly against collaboration with those who seek weapons of mass destruction to visit genocide upon their neighbors.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s guests, members of the so-called Neturei Karta, a minuscule sect that is loathed and rejected by the great masses of Jewry, would more accurately be labeled as extremist outcasts in traditionalistic garb.

DAVID GREENBERG
Flushing, N.Y.