Lay off Waldorf schools.

I have been a member of your organization for many years, and agree with the organization on the subject of charter schools and school vouchers. However, I have never read an article in your publication so poorly researched, so full of inaccuracies, as the recent "Charter for Controversy" (June Church & State).

I am not an anthroposophist; neither I nor any of my children or grandchildren have attended a Waldorf school. I live in a retirement community run by anthroposophists. My late mother-in-law was an anthroposophist and taught in Waldorf schools.

Anthroposophy was founded in the early 20th (not 19th) century by an Austrian philosopher, Rudolf Steiner. It is based on the belief that there exists a spiritual world just as real as the physical world, that this world was revealed to Steiner, and that it can be revealed to anyone by studying Steiner's writings. You call anthroposophy a religion. The purpose of a religion is worship; anthroposophy does not involve worship; rather it urges study. There is a religious movement associated with anthroposophy, the Christian Community. There is no connection between the Christian Community and Waldorf schools. While most Waldorf teachers are anthroposophists, Rudolf Steiner specifically required that anthroposophy not be taught in Waldorf schools, and it is not.

One of the principles of Waldorf education is that the children learn to write before learning how to read--they then read what they have written. This causes them to be behind the public school children in reading for the first few grades; by sixth grade, their reading scores generally exceed those of public school children. It is true that the students are told and are acting out "fairy tales and other types of mythical stories." The main purpose of these stories is the moral education of the child. It is also true that they do not use textbooks in the lower grades; the schools like to provide direct experience through classroom demonstrations and field trips. They do, of course, use books in the higher grades, computers in high school, and they do teach evolution.

Many children who live in this community attend a nearby Waldorf school. From my observation, the children who graduate from the high school are on the whole more mature, self confident, poised than the many children I know who graduated from public high schools (including my own). In addition, they all seem to be very creative. If creativity can be taught, Waldorf schools certainly seem to teach it.

I hope that in the future you will not succumb to prejudicial opinions based on limited knowledge.

Herbert Winter

Spring Valley, N.Y.