Readers on the 'manifesto' on how to fix the schools

In their Oct. 10 Outlook piece, "A manifesto: How to fix our schools," Joel Klein, Michelle A. Rhee and other education leaders wrote, "It's time for all of the adults -- superintendents, educators, elected officials, labor unions and parents alike -- to start acting like we are responsible for the future of our children. . . . We need the best teacher for every child, and the best principal for every school."

We will have the best teachers and the best principals we can reasonably expect when school leaders realize that naturally talented individuals are rare.

Great classrooms and great schools, like any great enterprise, are the product of great leadership.

"There isn't a business in America," they wrote, "that would survive if it couldn't make personnel decisions based on performance." More to the point, there isn't a business in America that would blame its failures on the quality of its employees.

Our education system will only become better when the leaders of the nation's school systems include themselves among the adults who need to act "like we are responsible for the future of our children."

David Crane, Boston

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Among all the platitudes these education leaders offered, there was one glimmer of the real solution: equipping teachers with technology. In the 21st century, it should be technology we rely on to impart knowledge and mastery to our children, and it should be teachers who facilitate that process. That is how we can solve the challenge of classrooms of children with wildly divergent needs and abilities. Digital learning is the only way we can fix our schools.