Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

One of the things I've most admired about Education Week has been its representation of educational issues without becoming a mouthpiece for various sectors of the educational establishment. So I was surprised and offended at the discussion and sponsorship of your Special Commentary Report ("Balance of Power: Rethinking the Federal Government's Role in Education," March 27, 1996). Given the background and interests of the participants in your "frame" (with the exception of Sheldon Richman), perhaps I should have expected nothing more than what was mostly edubabble and self-serving bureaucratic and political rhetoric.

Where were some of the real critics of the role of the federal government in education who might have seriously discussed the real issues involved? Perhaps editors who see nothing wrong with having the purveyors of a lethal product, Philip Morris, underwrite such a discussion, even as teenage smoking has more far-reaching consequences than anything the politicians and bureaucrats can dream up, cannot be expected to present a balanced or, indeed, honest discussion...