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The following letters are in response to the May 11-13 series"Schools promote students despite widespread failure."

The headline implies that our educational institutions aren't doing their job. However, no mention is made of parents' responsibility in producing successful or failing children.

Children come to a classroom with a set of values that they acquired from their parents. If those values are conducive toward education, then the child will succeed in school. If a child possesses insufficient or non-existent values for learning, no amount of intervention, persuasion or money spent from any educational institution will likely fill the gap to enable a successfully educated child.

Parents themselves must be educated to produce a home environment with appropriate modeling that will ensure children arrive at school with a desire to succeed.

Every year for the last five years I have had a group of at least 120 eighth-graders. Every year my colleagues and I review report cards to determine who should pass and who should fail.

Because our eighth-graders are only required to take three core classes, their freshman year we will allow kids to go forward with one failing core class. There is no written policy that states this, however. In fact, technically the policy implies that you can hold a student back for failing one core class. The policy, as the Star accurately stated, is flawed and vague.

Before coming to Sunnyside I had never worked in a district which did not have a student attendance policy. We have passed students who have missed 110 days of school. I have repeatedly asked that the policy be reviewed and updated. I have repeatedly been ignored.

I would encourage the Star to keep asking more questions.

Great investigative reporting on our Tucson-area school systems.

I received a quality college prep education in the Amphitheater Public Schools district. Now they won't divulge student-grade data to the Star. Keep after them; I'll do the same.

What has happened to our schools in the last several decades?

I am impressed by the excellent and thorough articles reporting a 10-month investigation of Tucson's middle and high schools. More funding for middle and high schools, and for retaining failing students, may indeed help some students succeed. But these are Band-Aids. The fact is that social promotion, grade inflation and awarding passing grades starts at the elementary level.

The best way to create successful students is very early intervention at the kindergarten level, where most children are eager to work and learn. Only students who perform well should be promoted to the first grade. And the same should be done in the following grades.

An important condition to consider: Kindergarten through third-grade classes should be small. Such an approach may look expensive, but in the long run, our children, our institutions of higher education and our economy will benefit.

Great series on grade inflation in Tucson-area schools. My guess is you would find the same in almost every school district.

Social promotion is indefensible. At the same time, simply holding a student back and doing nothing different for him is also worthless.

Ideally, the elementary schools should use AIMS scores and other evidence to determine whether students move to the next grade. And for those who don't, the state should provide funding that would allow schools to design effective remedial programs. Given the Republican-controlled Legislature, fat chance of that happening.

Most of this article refers to kids who have reached middle school. I believe that they are lost or overwhelmed long before that. Most of the schools tend to pay more attention to the overachievers when the extra time and attention should be on the average kids who repeatedly say "I don't get it."

After school, kids face one to two hours of homework and most of the time they are not really sure how to do the work. When we try to help, they say "That's not how the teacher says to do it." If they must have homework, to which I am opposed, make it something the parents can do.

There is no quality time with your kids when there is so much stress over seemingly unending homework.

Years ago, my family moved from Connecticut to Tucson. I was in the third grade when I arrived. Shortly afterward, I was put back in second grade. I cried and my mother cried, but there was no recourse. And there was certainly no hand-wringing by the teacher or principal. I was weak in spelling; they did what they had to do.

They were more interested in me getting a good education than in just feeling good about myself. Thanks to them, I went on to become a championship speller in junior high.

Following graduation from the University of Arizona, I went on to two successful careers, one of which was on a magazine staff.

To this day, I thank the teacher and principal who put me where I belonged at a time when I was not measuring up.

Here are potential solutions to the problems with our education system.

First, we must establish a multi-district trade school. This would provide infrastructure in the eyes of the business community and an opportunity for students who have no interest in regular school to learn a valuable skill.

Second, failing students should all be grouped together. This may or may not benefit them, but it would certainly prevent disruptive students from negatively impacting the entire student body and disrupting the progress of those who actually do wish to learn.

Third, special students should be grouped together, not held accountable to the same academic standards as regular students, and allowed to join regular classes if they demonstrate academic competence.

Fourth, students with chronic behavioral problems should be given mandatory employment in the vegetable fields. The mandatory period should last from six to 12 months and they should be compensated.

Editor's note: Pima County has a Joint Technological Education District that offers some trades training.

I really enjoyed the map concerning social promotion. The shame is that the analysis in this complex map so clearly displays our failings.

The irony is that we do the same thing every year — year after year — and wonder why there is still a problem.