Kudos for your continuing sermon preaching. Once again, you're spot on in "Our Test-score Crisis." Blaming teachers is a familiar tactic to push the problem away. Fault finding is just that: finding fault. Finding solutions - now there's a challenge, and one that is worthy of this community's time, effort, and yes, money.

Your mention of Harlem Children's Zone reminds me of Geoffrey Canada's visit to Rochester a number of years ago, when the Unitarian Universalist Churches sponsored his talk on violence prevention to parents and community leaders. He is inspiring and is going forward with a community embrace program that doesn't let go when the going gets tough. He's there for the long haul. His book, "Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun" documents how he earned his stripes and why he is making a difference.

Another bright spot is the Regional Academy being developed under Dr. Bill Cala's leadership, where test scores will be used as markers and not as goals. The Academy will bring together children from a variety of economic groups and ethnic backgrounds who will learn and succeed together.

Taking the best from what does work, hundreds of educators and community leaders are designing a program that wraps services around children and supports them as they do what they do best: learn.

Yes, we've tried before in fits and starts. We've learned what works and what doesn't. Working together to end the concentration of poverty, to give a hand up, not a hand out, is what works. Being smug and divisive, trying to wrest control and power away from the people, is what doesn't.

Thanks for reminding us that blaming doesn't do the job. Promise to keep us honest as a community with your continued preaching. It's not falling on deaf ears.

ELIZABETH OSTA, PITTSFORD

Osta is a former teacher with the Rochester school district.