Schools chief must end violence

Brooklyn: Now that Chancellor Fariña has decided to retire, the City Council should make sure that her successor is not another ultraliberal who is mainly concerned with closing schools, fewer suspensions for unruly behavior and free, so-called nutritious, lunches for all. The chancellor’s tenure has been marked by increased violence in the schools regardless of what statistics state. Plenty of incidents are covered up by school principals to make it appear that their leadership is strong in the schools. We need a chancellor who will advocate for all students who come to school wanting to learn and teachers who want to teach, but cannot learn or teach due to the constant disruptions caused by recalcitrant, defiant brats who are there for free lunch and to carry on daily. We need a chancellor who will commit to the restoration of the 600 schools for chronically disruptive students. When such schools existed years ago, school decorum was far better.

In reality, the Police Department should be in control regarding school discipline so that educators may focus on learning.

The schools in this city that are failing are doing so due to the students who attend them. If you placed the teachers in our so-called top schools into the more difficult ones, you would find the same problems as some of the observed behavior becomes impossible to deal with.

Ed Greenspan

Bad principal

Ozone Park: I couldn’t be more thrilled about Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announcing her retirement. She hasn’t done anything to help our school become better. She hasn’t done anything to end the bullying in our schools. I have contacted the Department of Education about Principal Bonnie Butcher at MS210Q and no one has done anything about her, either. The principal is a bully and has been assigning projects to the kids, which she’s not allowed to do. Parents have contacted the principal herself about the projects and her attitude, and she doesn’t care enough to end it. She’s already been in a local newspaper about people trying to get her fired. Teachers were forced to retire early because of her. There was an online petition on change.org to get her fired, but there weren’t enough signatures. Hopefully we get a better schools chancellor who actually does his or her job. Bobbi Jo Gonzalez

Bad buses

Manhattan: I am a teacher with the NYC Department of Education. I have a son with autism. I am appreciative of having free busing for him through DOE; however, two consecutive days this month he has missed school due to the school bus breaking down. I have reached out to Chancellor Fariña, the Office of Pupil Transportation and Lorinda Bus Co. — and nothing! Like everything else with the DOE, they wait until a bus crashes and a child is killed to change policy. Where do I win as a parent and a teacher? If I call out, I get written up and a letter is possibly placed in my file. How is it that I can be penalized for a situation that is in my employer’s hands? Parents need to speak out more and not be afraid to report problems.

Tamara Molina

Pushing the coverup

Manhattan: Call me cynical, but if President Trump’s puppets in the GOP and the lunatic right-wing media weren’t thoroughly convinced of his guilt, why would they be working so desperately to discredit Robert Mueller? Seems a bit disingenuous, no?

Anne Stockton

Hung up on numbers

Bedford, N.Y.: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but, as the saying goes, not to their own facts. Voicer Rosario Iaconis, chairman of the Italic Institute of America, asserts that “the largest mass lynching in U.S. history” was the slaughter of 11 innocent Italian-Americans that occurred in New Orleans in 1891. A simple Google search reveals this to be blatantly false. Twenty years earlier, 17 Chinese men and boys were hanged by an angry mob in Los Angeles. Twenty-eight years after the New Orleans tragedy, 237 African-Americans were murdered in Arkansas in what was called a “race riot”(1919). There is no need to exaggerate claims to bolster an argument. It actually weakens it. Ralph Coffey

Sailing over songs

West Milford, N.J.: To Voicer Rosario A. Iaconis: I will not quibble about the great contributions of the Italian people to Western civilization. However, I will take issue with your statement about Frank Sinatra. You stated that “Though Ol’ Blue Eyes is revered by millions, Sinatra did not alter the destiny of humankind.” With that last sentence, I beg to differ. I think there are probably thousands if not millions of people and their descendants walking around who were conceived and born because Ol’ Blue Eyes songs were playing in the background. I’d say that greatly altered the destiny of humankind. Betty E. Weisblum

Ending the ODs

Brooklyn: The amount of opioid overdoses and deaths in this country is ridiculous! They’re way too easy to get addicted to. All of these drug companies are the reason this country is deteriorating. They need to be sued and held responsible for inflicting this public health crisis on America.

Daniella Gorlov

Incarceration outrage

Douglaston: My heart goes out to the young man who spent 30 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit (“His gift of freedom,” Dec. 21). What kind of compensation could possibly make up for that miscarriage of justice? Irene Hughes

Ending poverty

Rochester: My boyhood hero, Robert Kennedy, often said that “Jobs are better than welfare.” As a liberal/progressive Democrat, I agree. But I would add that having a job that pays a good wage that is well above the government’s official poverty line is the human right of every American who is willing to lead a responsible and productive life. Therefore, I am proposing that following the November 2018 elections, our President and Congress reverse the 2017 tax cuts and instead spend $1 trillion on a new federal government jobs-creation and poverty-ending bill that guarantees a job to all responsible Americans that not only pays above the official poverty line, but also pays above the official near-poverty line, which is 100% to 125% of the poverty line. It is the humane and just thing to do.

Stewart B. Epstein

Corrupting minors

Bronx: To Voicer Lawrence Boliak: In the case of the adult female high school cheerleading coach accused of having sex with a male student, you say, “I’m sure the boy did not complain” and believe the teacher “should not be fired but made to seek help.” Everyone’s always outraged when an adult male high school teacher gets caught having sex with a female student, but there’s always some guy like you eager to downplay or romanticize an adult female having sex with high school boys because things are somehow different when a woman does it. I would have been totally outraged if that had happened to my son, but I suppose that was probably a high school fantasy of yours and you would have been just fine with some adult female in heat bedding your son. In the wake of all the sexual harassment scandals in the media lately, you should have kept that thought to yourself.

Jonathan Solomon GO NAKAMURA

Russian to judgment

Yonkers: Careful, Voicer Marion Rudaw, by thanking the Daily News for tickets to the Moscow Ballet you are leaving the door open to be accused of collusion with Vladimir Putin and the KGB. Robert Mueller’s investigation will reel in you, your family and friends to show how you helped ruin Hillary Clinton’s campaign to be President. James Clapper will go on TV and tell America how you were recruited by Putin and they will look into your past for any ties to the KGB including your buying Russian vodka in your local liquor store. Do yourself a favor and get yourself a good lawyer.

Michael Guerin

The last picture show?

Manhattan: A venerable Upper West Side institution is set to close at the end of January. Lincoln Plaza Cinema has been our go-to art theater for over 35 years. Millstein Properties claims it needs to do outside repairs (why would that affect the inside movies?) The general consensus is that Millstein has raised the rent beyond the proprietors’ ability to pay. The area is in an uproar, and needs all the support it can get to keep this wonderful theater open. It would be wonderful if you would publish this letter and try to garner support to keep at least some of our world-famous city from turning into something none of us can recognize.

Marcia Epstein