.Letters for April 8

Readers sound off on Berkeley High's small schools, marijuana testing, and Amazon.com.

“Small Schools, Big Debate,” Feature, 3/11

Fact-Check Much?

I found this text above the section for reader comments: “Editor’s
Note: Comments are not edited or fact-checked by the East Bay Express.”
After reading Rachel Swan’s article on Berkeley small schools, perhaps
her article should carry a similar disclaimer? As a teacher at BHS with
plenty of my own mixed feelings about small schools, I found many of
the statements and assertions made in the article about the practices
of small schools to be, at best, unsubstantiated and anecdotal —
and, at worst, highly prejudicial and inflammatory. You allowed your
newspaper to become an uncritical mouthpiece for the opposition to
small schools and redesign at Berkeley High. Perhaps this opposition is
warranted, perhaps not. But I believe journalists must do more than
cherry-pick evidence to echo the claims of unedited, unaccountable
sources such as student Facebook pages or the Berkeley Parents Network.
You allowed Ms. Swan to present anecdotes and sweeping generalizations
as serious journalism. I find this ironic in an article whose purpose
was to critique a supposed lack of rigor and standards at Berkeley
High.

Andrew Peck, Berkeley

Jacket Editors Respond

As the authors of the Berkeley High Jacket article referred
to in Rachel Swan’s article and as the editor-in-chief and features
editor of the Jacket, we feel thoroughly misrepresented by Ms.
Swan’s reporting and personally offended by the article’s inaccuracies
and lack of journalistic integrity.

Ms. Swan misused our article and in-person discussions with her. She
wrote, “Two weeks ago the Berkeley High Jacket reported that
teachers in charge of small schools are pressuring the science
departments at Berkeley High to inflate the grades of small school
students.” The intent of our article was to provide a balanced
portrayal of the current debate about small school practices and
overall BHS culture. We did not report that grade pressuring was
occurring, especially on the scale indicated by the authors of the
original letter. Ms. Swan wrote that our article “provided substantive
evidence for the science teacher’s accusations.” As the authors, we
firmly believe it did not provide this evidence. We did not write an
exposé.

In fact, we reported that we found “only one specific instance of
grade pressuring.” Many of the teachers, counselors, and administrators
across schools, whom we interviewed at length, denied any knowledge of
this practice. We told Ms. Swan as much when she approached us, and
explained that, to the best of our understanding, this was an issue of
differences in teaching philosophies and not of unethical or
inequitable small school practices. We feel Ms. Swan manipulated our
reporting to sensationalize and create controversy that ultimately
distracts from Berkeley’s equity discussion.

Ms. Swan quotes an anonymous parent on the Berkeley Parents’ Network
web site, stating that “CPA kids can’t take English or History APs.”
Not surprisingly, this anonymous Internet source is incorrect: CPA
students can and do take AP English Language and AP English Literature.
As journalists ourselves, albeit less experienced, we know to check our
facts. Even the most basic fact-checking requires checking the spelling
of names, but Megan Winkelman, the editor-in-chief of the paper whose
name appears on the front page of the article Ms. Swan summed up so
inaccurately, as addressed in the prior paragraph, is referred to as
“Coleman” throughout her misleading report. Additionally, the student
identified as “Ronald Purnell” is actually Ronald Pernell.

In general we found Ms. Swan entirely misrepresented many aspects of
Berkeley High and the small schools within it. While we do not believe
it is our place to address all these points, we hope that other members
and leaders of the Berkeley High community will challenge Ms. Swan’s
assertions.

Megan Winkelman and Natalie Orenstein, Berkeley

Where’s the Evidence?

I am deeply offended by Rachel Swan’s obvious hit piece on small
schools at Berkeley High School. In her effort to line up “evidence”
for her slanted viewpoint, Ms. Swan relied on outdated, biased
information and perpetuated inaccuracies about small schools,
especially my school, Community Partnerships Academy (CPA). I
personally spent much of my valuable time talking with Ms. Swan about
CPA, my teaching philosophy, and the work I have done around offering
Advanced Placement curriculum to all of my students. I even provided
her with copies of my curriculum. But none of the positive information
I provided appeared in her article. Instead, she chose to feature as
“evidence” for her article an outdated (2005), anonymous posting from
Berkeley Parents Network that asserted “CPA kids can’t take AP
English.”

As evidence for her claim that small school teachers give our
students “the perception that they’re doing better than they really
are,” Ms. Swan used a posting from a student’s Facebook page. Similarly
ludicrous “evidence” litters her article, which is one of the most
irresponsible examples of journalism I have ever seen. Indeed, if Ms.
Swan insisted upon using sources such as these, why couldn’t she have
presented a more balanced perspective, such as a more recent (2008)
posting on Berkeley Parents Network which strives to illustrate how
CPA, despite lower overall standardized test scores, prepares students
for success in college:

BHS standardized test scores are only one indicator of how well the
various programs/small schools are doing in preparing students for
“real world” academic success. For example, CPA has relatively low CST
standardized test scores, but last year, 100 percent of seniors
graduated and 100 percent completed the A-G requirements for four-year
college. And, of this year’s senior class: one-fourth are taking AP
Calculus and one-fourth are taking AP English Composition. So,
obviously, the CST scores don’t necessarily correlate with academic
success in “real world” measures of graduation rates and college
preparedness.

The article perpetuates the unsubstantiated accusations from a
letter that appeared in our school newspaper, the Berkeley High
Jacket
, wherein the authors allege that small schools are merely
trying to make student transcripts attractive for college admission,
rather than to prepare students for college itself. As my students’
rebuttal to this article asserted:

If this were true, how could we host up to thirty current college
students and college graduates every semester to speak about their
successes on Mr. Skeels’ alumni panels? Why would 20 percent of us
elect to take an additional English class for AP credit that meets at
7:30 in the morning? How could Ms. Bell, one of our AP English
teachers, require fifteen essays per semester? For a paper she
presented at a state educational research conference, Ms. Bell
conducted interviews of the CPA Class of 2007, in which she determined
that over 90 percent of those students attended college after
graduation and over 90 percent of that group earned an A or B in their
first semester of college English.

But Ms. Swan clearly was not interested in the constructive comments
my students made as they brainstormed this letter, even though they
were listed all over my board and she was present to observe the
brainstorming session. Instead, she sat in the back of my classroom and
recorded only the “jeers” and side comments my students made in
frustration about the original letter. My students were understandably
hurt by the original letter, and they may have been reacting
emotionally. But since Ms. Swan presented herself as a reporter who
wanted to be fair in her treatment of small schools, they did not
restrain their emotions, and some made negative comments under their
breath (though not loudly enough for me to hear). Evidently, these
comments were the only ones Ms. Swan was interested in presenting. Now
I can say that I have witnessed firsthand the role the media has played
in distorting representations of young people.

The way Ms. Swan used her own opinions as fact suggests that the
East Bay Express has embraced the Fox News standard of
journalism. She characterized parent-teacher conferences as meetings
where “the parent — not the teacher — is the expert” and
project-based learning as “group projects in which one person can do
all the work while everyone else pretends to understand.” Our
parent-teacher conferences are set up as team meetings, wherein each
participant makes contributions in the interest of how best to serve
the student. Our group projects are evaluated with rubrics that assess
each student’s performance and ensure that the work is truly
collaborative. But Ms. Swan was not interested in this, despite the
fact that I talked with her at length about my curriculum and our
school’s procedures.

Nor was she interested in hearing my students’ comments about small
school rigor, because they did not correspond with the biased report
she intended to present. On my students’ behalf from their
brainstorming session, I’d therefore like to point out that CPA, as
well as other small schools, has stringent requirements that exceed
both the BHS graduation requirements as well as the A-G requirements.
For example, our school requires a third year of a foreign language and
strongly recommends a fourth year of math that could be AP Calculus.
Also, our students are required to have internships in the junior and
senior years; the culminating project for each class includes an
internship portfolio and a senior thesis. Lastly, since we loop with
our students (one group of teachers follows students through all four
years), we can cover content standards more broadly and deeply. When I
taught in the large school, my department chair implied that English
teachers would be lucky to hit half of the standards the state requires
in its frameworks for each course. Since I began looping with my
students, I’m pleased to say that I not only cover all of the standards
for every course I teach, but exceed these with additional standards
from our technology program, our “Writing for College” program, and our
Advanced Placement Augmentation program.

Finally, I take issue with the way in which Ms. Swan’s article
belittles the strong relationships among students and between students
and teachers that are a hallmark of the small schools movement. The
most current education research explicitly supports the correlation
between strong teacher-student relationships and student performance. I
have been an educator for the past twenty years and I can say
unequivocally that the relationships I have with my students and their
parents are imperative for student success. I respect my students as
individuals and they respect me as their teacher. When students fall
behind or are not doing their work, I talk to them to find out what’s
going on. I offer to stay after school to help them. I call their
parents to enlist support at home. My students know that I care about
them and their success in school and life. I consider this not only my
job, but my personal responsibility. To characterize this deep
dedication as being “chummy” is offensive to me both personally and
professionally.

Small school teachers have worked tirelessly to combat the
“achievement gap” Ms. Swan speaks of — if she had taken the time
to even look through the book she cited on the subject, Unfinished
Business
, she would see that four current small school teachers
were among its contributors. We provide innovative, engaging, and
rigorous curriculum for our students, and we have seen extraordinary
results. Unfortunately, Ms. Swan’s failure to conduct due diligence on
rumors and hearsay has produced a biased report that perpetuates
inaccuracies and insults our small schools community.

I would appreciate any measures you can take to rectify the damage
caused by this irresponsible report.

Susannah Bell, English teacher, Community Partnerships Academy,
Berkeley High School

Small Schools Work

I am concerned that your newspaper did not report an accurate
picture of small schools in its recent article. I have two
grandchildren who went though Community Partnerships Academy (CPA). My
grandson needed more help with his grades than my granddaughter did,
but the school seemed ideal for both of them. My grandson had good
teachers who worked hard with him because he works better with a close
student/teacher/parent relationship. CPA was the best thing that ever
happened to him.

My granddaughter is a senior now, and will be in college in the
fall. Her teachers have always helped her by noticing when she needs
help. If her grades go down on a test or her homework is not turned in
they know something is wrong and will call me and ask what going on
with her. I believe CPA has also helped me make her into a better
person, always wanting to give back. I feel fortunate that CPA gave my
granddaughter the opportunity to take AP classes. She started taking AP
classes last year and was able to pass her AP English test. This will
save her time and our family money when she goes to college. She is now
taking three AP classes as a senior while holding a major school
leadership responsibility. CPA has helped her learn to balance these
activities.

I believe that small schools are a great option for students. All
students want to feel that if they need help they can go to their
teacher. They do not want to be looked at as a number in the classroom,
where teachers know their names but nothing else about them. I like the
fact that a teacher will call me and let me know that my grandchild was
not in class or that they were having a bad day and want to know what
was going on at home. It shows that they want to help.

Brenda Goolsby, Berkeley

CPA Supports Me

A couple of days ago the East Bay Express featured an article
about small schools at Berkeley High. As a Senior in Community
Partnerships Academy (CPA), a small school in Berkeley High I was
highly offended when I read Ms. Swan’s article. I fully believe
that CPA is preparing me for college. Although I have not taken
any actual class in college, I have taken many college-level courses at
Berkeley High School, two of which were within CPA and three were
offered through Academic Choice. I confident in my ability to
succeed in these classes and I have.  Not only has CPA helped
prepare me for college, they have helped me every step of the way in
applying to college. I have already been accepted to Cal Poly San Luis
Obispo and California State Long Beach (two of the most competitive
CSUs) and University of California Davis and University of California
Irvine. As a small-school student of CPA, I feel they have
challenged me academically in a way that will properly prepare me for
school in the fall. Even though CPA was challenging at times, the
teachers within this small school have supported me in a way that none
of my friends in Academic Choice have received. Whether it was
difficulty in school or emotional distress from outside conflicts, the
CPA community has been one of my strongest support system.

Kenji Quides, Community Partnerships Academy, Berkeley High
School

CPA Encouraged Me

I feel that Community Partnerships Academy (CPA) helps me to prepare
for college because every time I go to class I learn new assignment and
I really understand it. I get all the help that I need and my CPA
teachers really care for me. When I first started high school I thought
I wasn’t going to college and I never cared about going to college, but
being in CPA, my teachers encourage and teach me everything about
college. So in my last year I finally got accepted to San Jose State
University and Cal State University East Bay. I am the first in my
family to go to college and the only one out of five brothers and
sisters to attend a small school. I am also the only one who is taking
AP classes. I feel that CPA and CPA teachers have provided me with
everything to get prepared for college. CPA took me on college tours
and let me speak with college students.

Ali Alwasim, Community Partnerships Academy, Berkeley High
School

You Damaged Our Community

The administrative team at Berkeley High is deeply disturbed by your
article. In a five-page biased article filled with inaccuracies,
you irresponsibly called into question the validity of the education of
a large number of Berkeley High School students. The reporter
neglected to interview any administrative leader at either the site or
district level and scattered, among many misquotes, multiple damaging
falsehoods. In addition, the reporter failed to use valid data or
research to substantiate her conclusions.

Berkeley High has a long and proud tradition of excellence in public
education. We have been on the forefront in exploring innovative
ways to address inequity. Our fundamental belief is that not all
students come with equal readiness for work at the high school level,
and we have to meet students where they are. We recognize the problem
and work toward solutions. Thousands of students over our very
long history are proud to say they graduated from Berkeley
High. In 2008, Newsweek ranked BHS 286 among the top public
high schools in the nation. The school recently received a six-year
WASC accreditation, the longest possible term. Under the stabilizing
leadership of Principal Jim Slemp, our enrollment has increased. Over a
hundred college recruiters visit our school annually working to entice
our students to their institutions. Our students, across all programs,
are currently enrolled at all of the Ivy League Schools, Stanford,
University of California, Berkeley, and University of California Los
Angeles among others.

Like any urban public school BHS has its problems. We struggle
with an achievement gap; we struggle to retain great teachers in a
society that disregards them; we struggle with covert racism which
threatens to perpetuate separation and devalue who we are as
individuals. 

Unlike many schools, we are looking directly at the problem with our
city, our district, and our colleagues at school through our 2020
Vision — developing a collaborative plan to eliminate inequities
in our system by the year 2020. We are working to redesign our
institution to create more academic choices and to provide more
personalization. We believe strongly that teachers who share students
get to know them better, and this leads to stronger student engagement
and increased academic success. We believe that innovative
teachers who are passionate and committed to working with all students
are the key to altering the achievement gap — one student at a
time.

This is why the article you published is so damaging to our
dedicated staff and our community on many levels. In one moment of
inaccuracy and bias, you tore at the fabric of our common bond —
our students and our passionate work as teachers. As though pink
slips, low wages, and general societal disregard don’t hurt educators
enough, your article accused us of actually increasing the achievement
gap.

We are very committed to examining data across programs, small
schools, and departments to evaluate and monitor the growth of student
learning. The data guides us in improving our programs and small
schools, all of which are designed to meet the needs of diverse
learners while holding them to high standards.

In these difficult times, we would appreciate your exposing all the
effective work our educators are doing. You will find a great deal to
report.

Maggie Heredia-Peltz, acting principal, and William Huyett,
superintendent, Berkeley High School

Rachel Swan Responds

Calls to Superintendent Huyett, Assistant Superintendent Neil Smith,
and Acting Principal Heredia-Peltz were not returned. Principal Jim
Slemp was on medical leave and unavailable for comment.

Report All Sides

Thank you for covering extremely important local issues such as
small schools and the re-design effort at Berkeley High School.
However, as I read the article by Rachel Swan, it became apparent it
was much more of an opinion piece and nothing even approaching balanced
reporting.

Such a timely and critical issue deserves at least competent
research and reporting and an honest effort at presenting multiple
“sides” and perspectives.

Swan most definitely does not pass that test.

John Fike, Berkeley

Pure Fiction?

There are numerous mistakes regarding the CPA mathematics program.
First, the Interactive Mathematics Program (IMP) is not an experimental
program. IMP has been at Berkeley High since 1989. It is used
throughout the nation. The program began with funding from the National
Science Foundation and been a commercially published textbook series
since the late ’90s. Matter of fact, in 1999, the US Department of
Education identified ten K-12 mathematics programs as being exemplary
and promising. These programs were chosen because of their outstanding
quality and demonstrated effectiveness. Of those ten programs, five,
including IMP, were noted as “exemplary” because they provided
convincing evidence of their effectiveness in diverse settings and with
diverse populations.

It is because of IMP’s effectiveness with diverse populations that
CPA has been so successful in mathematics education when others have
been less so. Ms. Kavaler’s claim that an “A” student in small school
AP Calculus cannot solve 2x + 5 = 20 is an outrageous lie and degrades
the accomplishments of those students who worked so hard to get to
calculus. I gave a pop quiz today and asked my students to solve 2x + 5
= 20 and every student, with the exception of two freshmen, answered it
correctly. It is basically a seventh-grade question and it angered many
students that Ms. Kavaler would characterize their abilities as so
deficient. CPA is extremely happy with the results we are getting with
IMP. More research on IMP can be found at MathIMP.org.

I am personally extremely offended by the claim that “small schools
set unrealistic equity goals that all but require teachers to inflate
grades and doctor students’ transcripts.” I have never felt pressure to
pass a student that I believed did not deserve to do so. The author
really screwed up her facts when she stated, “At Community Partnerships
Academy, for example, teachers agreed that 70 percent of the tenth
graders who started out with basic or below eighth grade scores on the
California Standards Test should be UC or California State University
eligible by the end of the school year, as long as their grades don’t
decline in the second semester.” The fact is that 70 percent of these
students WILL BE eligible. Our GOAL is to have even more students
eligible. Ours is a philosophy of high expectations and the deep belief
that students can achieve. The notion that these goals can only be
reached through grade inflation and transcript doctoring is wrong and
stinks of racism.

Regarding the California Standards Test (CST) in mathematics, it is
important to understand that there is no standards test that correlates
with IMP. There is an integrated test students can take, but it is just
traditional mathematics put in a different order. IMP students study
mathematics that is designed for the 21st century. For instance, we
spend around 20 percent of our year studying statistics that is not
covered on the integrated test. Statistics is useful and relevant. It
hooks kids into mathematics and helps them look at their world in a
mathematical way. The fact that there is no CST that correlates with
IMP is unfortunate, but the trade off in having students who can think
mathematically is well worth it.

In closing, I think the author had a story in her mind before she
ever visited my classroom. I welcomed her to my class, answered her
questions about what the unit she observed was about, and feel she was
never honest about why she was there. She never asked me a single
question about the history or philosophy of IMP or the mathematics
program in the Community Partnerships Academy. Instead she based her
story on rumors and falsehoods. The Express should be
embarrassed to have published such irresponsible “journalism” and steps
need to be taken to be sure that this doesn’t happen again. After this
experience, will never have any faith that anything published in your
paper is any other than pure fiction.

Matthew Bremer, math teacher, Community Partnerships Academy,
Berkeley High School

Expand Your Minds

While the small school discussion is ongoing at Berkeley High School
(BHS), the small minds operating at East Bay Express have
revealed themselves.

I am BHS volunteer and periodically attend in Ms Bell’s classroom. I
have firsthand experience seeing how she and other Community
Partnerships Academy teachers work tirelessly to provide a challenging
and supportive curriculum for the students.

My direct experience in her classroom is vastly dissimilar to Ms
Swan’s report.

The students are presented with substantial assignments and are
expected to complete them. The assignments require significant effort
to complete. Ms Bell’s 10th graders are required to read and write
thoughtfully on well-known literature — including Catcher in
the Rye
, Lord of the Flies, and Othello — to
name a few. The students that I’ve spent time with are reading the
books and completing the assignments.

While the debate over the philosophical issues of small schools will
continue, it is counter-productive, especially for the students, to
print a piece that is so shamelessly one-sided, written for a knee-jerk
reaction.

The teachers at the small schools at BHS are committed to broadening
the minds of their students and perhaps Ms. Swan might take note of
this and follow suit.

Jeanee Hoffman, Oakland

Right on Target

Kudos to you. The article was right on target. As a retired BHS
teacher, many of us have said that the small schools movement at BHS
heightened segregation and created a system of no accountability in
curriculum, student enrollment, grading practices and heightened the
achievement gap. Even the Gates Foundation, after spending $2 billion,
is pulling out stating that the evidence is clear that smaller
impersonal schools are not more effective than larger impersonal
schools to reduce the drop-out rates and the achievement gap.

Joan Horikoshi, Danville

At Least They’re in School

I was dismayed to see that your article on Berkeley High’s small
schools minimized the increased graduation rates for students of
color. As the “auntie” of several Oakland teenagers, few of whom
have actually stayed in school past 9th grade, I would be thrilled to
have my young friends stay in high school and graduate, no matter what
their achievement test scores were. Reducing drop-out rates is an
enormous success.

Swan also minimized the fact that students in these schools feel
respected and connected to their teachers and peers. Urban teens
can make money and get respect selling drugs and selling their
bodies. How wonderful that the students in the small schools at
Berkeley can get respect they need at school instead.

Test scores are a limited measure of achievement. Although the exact
mechanisms that lead to low test scores are not known, it is true that
internationally, people from groups that are socially stigmatized and
living in poverty are less likely to succeed academically. In Japan,
where Koreans are a disrespected cultural minority, Koreans do poorly
academically. It’s possible that test scores won’t improve until
society changes.

It sounds like the small schools at Berkeley High are keeping
students in school who would otherwise be dropping out and giving them
chances to improve their grades when they don’t succeed the first
time. Please don’t underestimate the importance of this.

Heather MacLeod, Oakland

A Step Backward

I am writing to express my strong outrage at the article released by
your publication on Wednesday of this week. Judging by the article, Ms.
Swan’s attempts at “reporting” involved borrowing from unsubstantiated,
anonymous, incorrect sources, inaccurately and fallaciously citing a
student publication as a major source, and either taking quotes out of
context or outrightly fabricating them. In my conversations with
students and colleagues today, your newspaper has damaged the
self-esteem, credibility, and hope of students and educators deeply
involved in the most progressive and effective education to be found
anywhere in the Bay Area.

Mr. Buel, I cannot tell you how disappointed and angry I am with the
perniciousness of the article published under your watch. As an English
teacher, I’ve discussed the Unreliable Narrator with my students, but
this takes the cake. I cannot even bear to begin debunking the article,
claim by unfounded claim, but to begin with, if Ms. Swan had actually
read Pedro Noguera’s book Unfinished Business, she’d have seen
that, in the softcover edition published last year, Noguera wrote an
updated foreword in which he declared that small schools at Berkeley
High were the programs working to increase equity and achievement
across socioeconomic and ethnic lines.

While I understand that these are difficult financial times for all
of us, especially schools and newspapers, my 10th graders have somehow
gotten the message that your staff writer and factcheckers haven’t:
claims must be substantiated with evidence, not wild generalizations,
and they must, above all, actually be true.

Bravo, Mr. Buel. Your paper has taken a step backwards for all of us
who love both the English language and the First Amendment.

John Becker, English teacher, Berkeley High’s Arts &
Humanities Academy, Oakland

Promote Patience

In considering whether to continue the small schools experiment or
not, I would urge all of the factions involved to take the long view of
this problem.

Given that the inequalities in our society are a legacy of centuries
of oppression, and given that our society is so complex and changing so
rapidly, to expect quantifiable change on a district-wide level within
a few years is problematic.

Likewise, given a “typical” individual entering Berkeley High as a
freshman, after eight years of falling below grade level, it is
similarly unwise to expect that student to be truly ready for UC
Berkeley four years later.

I say these things not to be discouraging, but to promote patience.
If the community (and hopefully the entire nation) dedicates itself to
solving this problem, things will eventually improve — but the
change will come on the scale of generations, not four-year election
cycles.

David Glaser, Berkeley

“String Theory,” Music, 2/25

Arts = Life

How nice to see the changes in your paper! It reminds me of the
old days when your paper was so relevant with great music commentaries
by Derk Richardson and Larry Kelp. I love the String Theory
article. 

I live in Marin so don’t get your paper many weeks. I will look
for it now when I’m over the bridge.

For me I see the arts as being the measure of how we are doing as a
species and the hope and beauty inspired by the arts is a cure for the
wars and negative side of life.

Lisa Sangita Moskow, San Rafael

Zion-I: The Take Over, CD Reviews, 2/25

Hurting Your Credibility

Rachel Swan endangers her credibility as a music reporter by
referring to the baile-influenced “DJ DJ” as “drum ‘n’ bass” or Amp
Live’s work of five years ago as “pedestrian R&B grooves.” But I
agree with her on one crucial point: At this point Zumbi is the Guru to
Amp Live’s Premier. This is another duo where the producer is FAR
better than the emcee … at least Zumbi has enough sense to get out of
the way and the let the beat live. 

Amp Live has always been a talented jack-of-all-trades, and right
now he is on top of his game like few other producers. The next step is
to just start working with a pool of emcees that reflects the depth and
breadth of his immense musical talent.

Jason de Barros, San Francisco

“The Art of Living Black,” Museums & Galleries, 2/11

DeWitt Cheng Responds

Ms. Heider’s assertion (Letters, 3/25) that “art ‘critics’ from
Kenneth Baker on down to” myself consider black artists valid only when
they work figuratively is intemperate and erroneous. My review of the
“The Art of Living Black” at Richmond Art Center (“Transracial Like
Us,” 2/11), to which she probably refers, stated no such thing.
Instead, the piece condemned race-phobic whites unable to acknowledge
that blacks have historically voted nonracially (i.e., for whites); it
also pointed out that Homo sapiens was black a few millennia ago before
migrating from Africa. It is true that only one abstract work was cited
in that review — but that was due to space constraints.

Corrections

In our March 25 story about the Parkway and Cerrito theaters, we
used the wrong title for Lori Trevino, who is the economic development
manager for the City of El Cerrito.

In our March 25 music review of Zu and Mike Patton, we misprinted
the name of the photographer with the accompanying photo. His name is
Mark Sherman.

In our April 1 story “Burners Torched Over Native Party,” we got the
job title wrong of Morning Star Gali. She is the board chairwoman of
Intertribal Friendship House, not the director.

In our March 25 review of Cioccolata Di Vino, we printed the wrong
opening hours for the restaurant. It opens at 11 a.m. seven days a
week.

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