Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
‘Obedient Servants’
Michael Barone gives far too much credit to teachers unions for the defeat of vouchers [Oped, “Obedient Servants,” November 12, 2007].
Between 1967 and 2004, voters in 25 statewide referendums across the country repeatedly defeated vouchers or their analogues by margins of at least 2-to-1. Utah brings the total to 26. In California, which is considered a bellwether, voters said no to vouchers in 1982, 1993, and 2000 by ever-increasing margins.
In 2000, they voted down vouchers by 71% to 29%, despite the heavy damage inflicted by Proposition 13 on public schools.
It’s hard to believe by any stretch of the imagination that teachers unions are so powerful that they’ve been able to consistently hoodwink voters over such a protracted time frame and by such lopsided numbers.
WALT GARDNER
Los Angeles, Calif.
‘If You Build It, Will They Come?’
Thanks for Katie Taylor’s perceptive and useful piece on the Bilbao Effect [Arts & Letters, “If You Build It, Will They Come?” November 6, 2007].
She well covers the economic and civic aspects of this burgeoning of spectacular art centers, but barely mentions what should be their prime purpose — the exposition of art.
I will not harp on the confusions of navigating Bilbao, confusions well hinted at by the exterior forms, but on the exhibit galleries themselves. They do a very poor job of their primary purpose — to show art.
They are banal, poorly proportioned, and poorly lighted cubes — I think here of the superb use of controlled daylight in the new Tate Modern.
Bilbao has by its forms hugely cheered up this rather drab Basque commercial town, but does a poor job of its prime function — the display of art.
I’ve not visited the other spectaculars Ms. Taylor covers, but wonder whether the same might apply elsewhere, where the architect’s name overshadows the art.
JAMES KINGSLAND
New York, N.Y.
Please address letters intended for publication to the Editor of The New York Sun. Letters may be sent by e-mail to editor@nysun.com, by facsimile to 212-608-7348, or post to 105 Chambers Street, New York City 10007. Please include a return address and daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited.
