PUBLISHED: May 17, 2006 | By Deborah Meier | New York Times

To the Editor:

Your skepticism about charter schools would sit more comfortably if it were paired with skepticism for some other "magical solutions" now in vogue: close monitoring, ever more tests, mayoral control and pay by results. The evidence is underwhelming that any of these has shown success, even in terms of test scores.

To educate all children well requires changes in the conditions of life that face too many children and their families. It also requires debunking centuries of false assumptions about who is and isn't intelligent and, above all, a definition of "well educated" that goes far beyond what test scores in reading and math will ever tell us. Add to that a respect for the tough craft of teaching.

Deborah Meier
Hillsdale, N.Y., May 10, 2006
The writer is a senior scholar at the Steinhardt School of Education, New York University.