Submitted by David Pakter, Nov 27, 2007 20:12

Since Art Fougner MD is convinced complex situations in society can be reduced to three letters, may I in response to Dr. Fougner suggest the three letters, DOE (Dept of Education).

I had a distinguished 37 year career as a teacher in NYC and was personally decorated by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in New York's City Hall for "Exceptional Achievement in Education" and named a "Teacher of the Year". I have also been listed in the Who's Who Among America's Best Teachers.

I had designed from the ground up and personally financed, the first Medical Illustration Program in the United States whose goal was to serve as a launching pad to assist highly gifted Minority students in gaining admittance and scholarships into the pre med programs of the nation's premiere Ivy League Universities. This elite and unique program was highly praised by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Clara Hemphill who visited my school and observed the program.

In September 2004 I was summarily removed from the school after I documented on film that egregious Federal Civil Rights violations were occurring at the school and refused to surrender that evidence to the school administration.

Although a State Hearing officer, after a lengthy Trial ordered the NYC DOE to return me to the school system forthwith, I was not allowed to return to my original school and the Medical Illustration program that had served so successfully to help gifted and highly motivated students of color to break out of the cycle of grinding poverty was totally dismantled and no longer exists. A moral crime of epic proportions which will be documented in a forthcoming book to be published in 2008.

To see the level of skill that countless inner city students are now deprived of see my internet web site at www.OldMasterPortraits.com I am only one of countless NYC teachers who have seen their careers destroyed once they became Whistle-blowers and/or reported wrongdoing or corruption within the NYC school system. Most NYC taxpayers appreciate that people such as myself are willing to report corruption even at the risk of our own career security. Interestingly, although the majority of Whistle-blowers see their career destroyed, often viciously, fully 85 per cent say they would report corruption again given the chance.

As for the comment of Mr. Bud Luebkert, who feels his very brief one year stint as a teacher confers on him some type of expertise to opine on the reasons for problems in the schools, I am curious as to why his teaching career was so brief. Did he find it too hot in the kitchen and too utterly exhausting on a daily basis which indeed it can be. But perhaps judging from his level of spelling proficiency, it is just as well. NYC students have enough problems without being taught by someone who spells "academic" as "acedemic".

I trust THE SUN will see fit to print these remarks that reflect that nothing is either black or white and that every story has in fact, more than one side.

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