PUBLIC FORUM : CLONING `NEITHER IMMORAL NOR DANGEROUS'.

The president and some members of Congress have already taken a stance against human cloning. Their reasons vary, but all are illegitimate.

Cloning, which already exists in many species in nature, is neither immoral nor dangerous to the species. Other technologies - in vitro fertilization for one - have not created monsters, genetic time bombs or a new class of humans. I doubt if all the infertility techniques ever developed have created any human subclass or monstrosities.

Perhaps the most obvious result has been the frequency of multiple births and, in some cases, the birth of handicapped babies from such multiple births. But abnormal births have always been a small percentage of births the ``old-fashioned way.''

Even if human cloning becomes a readily available process to infertile couples, the impact on humanity as a result would be unnoticed.

There was a time when the offspring of unmarried people were considered ``bastards'' and condemned to eternal hell. Do we have to invent a new derogatory term for children born as a result of cloning?

- Sol Taylor

Sherman Oaks

Social promotion

``Pass or fail? Plan to end social promotion debated,'' screams the front page of the Jan. 10 Daily News.

Thus begins the story of Gov. Pete Wilson's attempt to make students pass standardized tests before being promoted to the next grade in our public schools. Joining the argument against such a move are Brad Sales, speaking for Superintendent Ruben Zacarias, and board member David Tokofsky, representing our wonderfully enlightened Los Angeles Unified School District, both saying too many students ``wouldn't make it.''

As a manager occasionally needing to hire new employees, let me speak on behalf of the real world - the business community - regarding the results of this practice. I really do understand the stigma attached to parents of schoolchildren when they repeat a grade.

Yes, failure will indeed hurt Johnny's or Jane's little ego. Now, try the damage to their ego when they can't get a job in the real world out there, where they are required to do more than ask ``Do you want fries with that?''

Not long ago I was in the position of hiring a mail-room clerk. This is not a position that requires an MBA, but I expected to find a reasonable level of education for this entry-level position. I was looking for someone promotable.

Well, one of the LAUSD graduates I interviewed listed ``pragncy'' on her application as the reason for leaving her last two jobs. Maybe I was being unreasonable, but it seemed to me that a young person having spent nearly two years of her life involved in such an important activity would at least learn to spell it.

Does ``social promotion'' exist in the LAUSD? You bet. For once, I actually find myself agreeing with the teachers union, when United Teachers Los Angeles President Day Higuchi points out that the current system is rigged against retention.

How in the world can we expect the next generation of Americans to compete on the world market, when they can't even spell it, much less expect them to learn from their failures?

Believe me, when these kids fail on the job, they'll be fired. Then they'll be on welfare or some other such program after the unemployment benefits run out. The worst part of it is, with their lack of education, they won't even understand why. They will blame ``the system.'' And they will be right.

- Jerry Schwartz

Granada Hills

Re the comments on social promotion in Public Forum Jan. 13 by Annie Caroline Schuler (``Social promotion recipients are its victims''):

The belief in the efficacy of retaining children in grade, flunking them or holding them back from kindergarten for ``unreadiness,'' is right in there with the belief that the world is flat.

When children are repeating a grade, they tend to demonstrate a little improvement in their performance of the repeated material. HoweverY, they fail to sustain improved performance of new material.

The experiences of children judged ``unready'' and held back from entering kindergarten or placed in a ``junior'' or two-year kindergarten are different from retained students, but the results are just the same. As the years go by, the children continue to do poorly, are overage for grade, and at the age of 16 are legally ready and able to drop out of high school - and they do.

The statistics for any retained child, regardless of ethnicity or social class, demonstrate a 50 percent greater probability of dropping out of high school. When ethnicity is considered, African-American and Latino children have rates closer to 80 percent.

Children who have normal intelligence, but who are doing poorly in school, are not getting the teaching methods that are appropriate for them as individuals.

Put the burden of children's learning where it belongs - on the teacher, not the child.

Parental support of the academic process is a great predictor of academic success. School districts need to reach out to parents in ways that really work in today's real world. Most households depend on parents who are at work all day. Yet few schools run their site councils and PTAs at night.

Do you realize how cost-effective it is to provide class-time remedial services and home-school visiting staff? Part-time instructional aides earn $10-$12 per hour. Their presence in a class frees the teacher to attend to the students who need the greatest attention.

Let's get sensible. Children are the victims when they alone are made responsible for whether they succeed in school.

Teach children, don't retain them.

- Karen Ann Robinson-Stark

Tujunga

Wilson and teachers

All the politicians considering a run for governor are discussing the education crisis. Yet, very few will address one of the root causes for the paucity of students enrolling in teaching training programs: The starting pay is extremely low compared to other profeYssions that require a minimum five years of university training.

Gov. Pete Wilson, in his determined war against public schoolteachers, now proposes that teachers not be paid for ``noninstructional time'' between classes.

This is essentially telling teachers that they should receive a 9.6 percent daily pay cut for time that is spent conferring with students, supervising hallways, setting up the next class activity, photocopying a lesson, or even, heaven forbid, sneaking in a quick trip to the restroom. Is this Wilson's answer to attracting the best and the brightest to California's most important profession?

If California wants to attract the best college students to the teaching profession, it must acknowledge that teachers have to be paid better. Petty pay cuts proposed by Wilson only exacerbate a deeply rooted problem.

May the state Legislature, Democrats and Republicans alike, see through Wilson's sham and throw this specific budget proposal in the trash.

- Edward Kaz

Faculty president

Reseda High School 

As a math teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District, one who struggles almost daily against the incessant loss of instructional time, I would be much more enthused about the governor's plans to lengthen the school year if he focused on the actual time in class instead of the number of days in a semester.

To clarify the distinction, let me use my own school, Cleveland High in Reseda, as an example. With 55 minutes per class, six classes a day, for 89 school days, one would expect our fall semester to be 29,370 minutes long.

Yet the actual instruction time will total, at most, 25,511 minutes. That computes out to be only 77 real days. Half of the missing 12 days are pupil-free LEARN (Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now) days, days whose usefulness many seriously question.

Another heavy nemesis to education, and it only gets worse during the spring semester, is the administering of the much-debated standardized tests, which alYl students are supposed to take.

While everyone argues the meaning of test scores, who is responsible for low scores, which tests to use, the superintendent's raise for improved scores, etc., most overlook the fact that testing takes time, and the time always comes out of classroom time.

It's only a small exaggeration to say that test scores drop because we spend so much time testing, there is no time left to teach. Increasingly, advanced-placement teachers find they must meet with their students on their own time to make up for the hours robbed from regularly scheduled classes.

Gov. Wilson, do something about the time we actually have to teach our students, and forget about the easy fix of days in a semester.

- Michael Helwig

Canoga Park

99-year-old immigrant

In ``U.S. drags its feet while 99-year-old immigrant walks tall,'' Daily News, Jan. 9, Dennis McCarthy failed to mention how many years Rafael Gomez dragged his feet before deciding to become an American citizen.

If his motivating factor was economic necessity ``because Spain was cheap,'' that is not my idea of walking tall.

- Robert Gaulet

Los Angeles

Growth and the environment

Re Robert W. Tracinski's article in Viewpoint Jan. 4, ``Unabomber's beliefs not so different from tree huggers'':

For anyone to express the belief that concern for the environment is tantamount to terrorism is plainly insane. Unfortunately, Tracinski is quite glib. Viewed from the warped perspective of comparing the death of a woman from breast cancer to the survival of a tree, he did seem to make some valid sense. The problem with his entire literary perspective, however, is that he is only dealing in absolutes.

Tracinski's arguments in favor of industrial and technological growth are really arguments in favor of putting more billions of dollars into the pockets of those who already have far too many of them.

As an example, since industrial growth is linked directly with population growth, any billiYonaire worth his greedy guts would not be expected to advocate the global acceptance of birth control.

- Ron Presson

Northridge