LETTERS - Aug. 31

ISSUE | FAREWELLS

Hoops stalwart

While I am sad that the 76ers decided to trade Thad Young, I am happy that, hopefully, he is going to a better team. All the years that Young played in Philadelphia, I never heard one bad word about him. I was most impressed that he took out a full-page ad in The Inquirer on Wednesday, thanking the city for its support. Class act.

|C. Fogarty, Schwenksville

ISSUE | FERGUSON

Roots of the problem

Just as in the 1964 riots, when frustration built over "racial and economic pressures . . . largely over discrimination, jobs, and housing," frustration is building over these and other issues such as the schools and criminal-justice system ("Lasting damage," Aug. 24). We need to stop asking why people respond like that, and instead demand an end to the injustice and inequality.

|Sylvia Metzler, Philadelphia

ISSUE | CELEBRATION

Role models

As a Camden middle-school teacher, each year I strive to focus on positive social development with my students by studying a group in our community. This year, I know it will be the Taney Dragons. As enrichment activities, my students will learn and explore more about this group of elite Little Leaguers.

|Wayne E. Williams, Camden

Dream makers

For those who did not agree with the Wednesday parade for the Taney Dragons, consider that this is a team of kids who, by sheer determination, strength, and team effort, played their hearts out for each other. They overcame obstacles that other teams could not and found themselves in the Little League World Series. The parade let kids standing on the sidelines know that, with hard work and determination, they can see their dreams fulfilled, too.

|Maria McDonald, Rockledge

ISSUE | DOLLARS AND SENSE

Clear gains from wise school investments

I was stunned by the Commonwealth Foundation's recent assertion that students don't do any better when more money is spent on the School District ("Group disputes study on school finances," Aug. 13). I agree that more money doesn't automatically mean better results, but in the case of Philadelphia, when money was spent wisely on research-proven practices, students showed marked improvement.

From 2003 to 2010, state funding for districts across the state rose annually, and by the end of 2010 it was more than $2 billion higher. The year before the state began substantial annual increases in funding, 22 percent of Philadelphia students in grades 5, 8, and 11 were able to do grade-level work in reading and math. By 2010, the percentage more than doubled, and nearly half of city students in those grades were performing on grade level. Student performance was far from where it needed to be, but the jump in the number of students who could read and do math on grade level is undeniable evidence that sound investments made possible real results.

Philadelphia's progress was not unique. In 2009, the Center on Education Policy, a respected nonpartisan research institution, singled out Pennsylvania as the only state where students showed significant gains on rigorous national assessments in every grade and subject tested from 2002 to 2008. This happened because we didn't just throw money at a problem. Funds were targeted to reforms that were proven to boost student achievement, including expansion of pre-K and full-day kindergarten, reduction of class sizes through third grade, and tutoring for struggling students.

The Commonwealth Foundation ignored key facts and limited its review to further its ideological goal of shrinking government. It looked at student data from 2002 to 2013, including the two years after I left office as governor, when funds for districts across the state, including Philadelphia, were slashed by nearly $1 billion. In those years of state disinvestment, student performance tanked. It's clear that money correctly and effectively targeted can have a dramatic effect on students' performance and the state's future.

|Edward G. Rendell, Philadelphia

ISSUE | PARKWAY CONCERTS

Quiet Labor Day weekend? Not around here

Mayor Nutter's claim that the Made in America Festival's "primary goal is to have a positive impact on the communities involved" is at best an Alice in Wonderland delusion, or civic cynicism at its worst. For those of us in the communities of Logan Square and Fairmount, this annual, for-profit, high-decibel, two-day rock concert makes living within a mile of it unbearable.

Let's not fool anyone. The city is pressing its logistical capabilities to the extreme in order to have a party at someone else's house - those communities. This so-called festival would be just as successful, raise just as much money for charity, and operate easily, without disturbing anyone or forcing the participants to go through extraordinary logistical complications, if it were held in the stadium complex - for which taxpayers paid millions of dollars to build for precisely this purpose.

If the mayor truly believes that the party has such a positive impact on the communities involved, then he should move it each year to a different neighborhood. Why not hold it in Overbrook next year?

|Michael Volpe, Philadelphia