Jamie Dimon dosen’t need any help (“All-Out War To Shut Up Jamie Dimon,” Charles Gasparino, May 8).
He’s an experienced and well-paid banker and should be able to take some heat.
After all, every time he makes a “collateral call” on a company, it seems to go under or needs to be bailed out, like Bear Sterns, Lehman and MF Global.
Dimon seems to be short, just before the “collateral calls.”
That’s why JP Morgan is the only financial company that didn’t lose money during the crisis.
Richard Rainey, Floral Park
Longer is better
Thirty years ago, “A Nation at Risk” made the case for a longer school day to address the educational gaps that leave so many students unprepared for life (“Don’t Bet on Longer School Days,” Naomi Schaefer Riley, PostOpinion, May 7).
No one would argue that more of the same from a failing school helps anyone.
The initiative to improve the reading skills of middle-school students, recently announced by Chancellor Dennis Walcott and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, is based on strong research, including a study of New York charter schools that showed more learning time was the strongest predictor of high student performance.
And decades of research show that the music, art, yoga and chess lessons that community partners will bring are essential to students’ success.
This initiative is backed by a gold-standard evaluation that will tell us exactly how well it’s working. Let’s not give up before we begin.
Lucy N. Friedman, President, The After-School Corporation, Manhattan
Alien voters
I was appalled to read that Councilman Daniel Dromm has sponsored a bill to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections (“‘Elex’ Rated Aliens,” May 10).
If I lived in NYC, I would be really upset that people who have no loyalty to this country would be able to vote.
As a real upstate New Yorker, I cannot believe the things that come out of the City Council.
The Democrats and their social agenda will ruin this country.
Douglas Strodel, Warrensburg
Targeting teachers
Virginia Barden, the teacher allegedly put in the closet, was a chapter leader of the UFT branch at the school (“Principal Put Me In Storage,” May 7).
Barden was a powerful and respected teacher who was a threat. Then she was deemed incompetent, despite a long and successful teaching career.
Putting a professional into a closet instead of into rehabilitative training, which should be available to any “stumbling” teacher, shows a diabolical side.
This is not an isolated case. The system is filled with incompetent, self-serving, insecure administrators.
They can only be judged satisfactory in preserving their positions at any cost.
Dianne Stillman, Brooklyn
Age-old question
Let me get this straight: A 15-year-old is mature and responsible enough to have sex and take Plan B without parental knowledge or consent, but a 26-year-old is not responsible enough to get their own health insurance and can remain on their parents’ policy (“The Madness of Liberal Moralizing,” Heather Mac Donald, PostOpinion, May 7)?
Elise Teepe, Eatontown, NJ