Thanks, DESE, for all you've done

To the editor:This an open letter to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education:

Dear DESE:

Thank you so much for reporting that you made an error in calculating the adequate yearly progress for two of Cape Girardeau's elementary schools. You gave us quite a scare.

We sent letters to parents, had meetings, worked on a plan to transfer students and considered transportation issues.

We ate the crow you fed us and offered mea culpa to the community -- bitter tears and wringing hands.

We re-examined how, what, when, who and where we failed to teach material germane to the test. We had done all the tutoring, one-on-one assistance and after-school programs we could manage, but we knew our students could and would do better if we helped them, encouraged them and made sure they were taught exactly as you prescribed. After all, you are the state agency with the experts and know how to make all students successful. As our president promised and you have reinforced: Everyone will be reading at grade level by 2009 or 2010.

Think how different America will be on that day. No more poverty, full employment, bulging libraries, media written or spoken at the 12th-grade level, full employment and a chicken in every pot. We will have achieved President Johnson's Great Society. Everyone will finally be equal as we were created.

Now you tell us you made a mistake. Darn. How could you do that to us?

As John Welch said to Joe McCarthy during the witch hunt of the 1950s: "Have you no decency, sir?"

BILL SPRINGER, Teacher, Cape Girardeau