To recap it, we were informed that Superior Court Judge Howard Manning and Gov. Mike Easley are very serious about reforming schools where fewer than 55 percent can pass standardized tests.

We're not told how many such schools are targeted, where they are located, nor exactly why schools have a "constitutional" responsibility to provide "a halfway equal education to children in various parts of the state." A few lines supporting that statement would have served to put the rest of the piece in better perspective for me.

If 55 percent can pass standardized tests, that's acceptable?

We're led to believe these schools are located in poverty areas throughout the state, and we're told Mr. Easley has plans to send "turn around" teams to force these schools to rethink how they teach and possibly firing faculties that "can't get with the program."

These ideas won't get the job done because they don't attack the crux of the problem, which has afflicted America's teaching schools for way too long -- that is, the rejection of the knowledge- or fact-based system in favor of vastly inferior systems which had the idea that "growth and development" trumped knowledge.

I don't expect Mr. Easley to know this fact, for he too was a victim of America's public schools.

Reading comprehension cannot be achieved without a broad-based accumulation of background knowledge. This is what the teaching schools of America must come to understand, so their graduates will be able effectively to instruct the children of America, including those unfortunate to be in low income areas.

Only then will we see improvement. Anything less, and you can expect continued dismal public school instruction.

Bill Schwenk

Southern Pines