'Educationists MORE LETTERS Destroy Parental Involvement/ Writer Claims To the editor: in a move educators perceive as a diplomatic effort to increase parental participation in public schooling, parents must this week pick up their children's report cards at South Brunswick High Scnool wh?re they are invited to visit with classroom teachers. Perception, unfortunately, is mis leading. We won't get any news re ports of how many "ungrateful" par ents find report cards almost worth less these days, nor will we hear about what progress conferences with teachers produces when parents are ignorant of the curriculum. The trouble is the educationists themselves destroy parental involve ment in the grade schools. On the one hand educationists have assumed parental duties with out authorization, and on the other hand changed context and methods of teaching radically from times past, thus forcing many parents to seek relief through politics instead of conference. Some parents are all too willing to let the educationists run the whole show; others are frustrated. The atmosphere of "come to us and help us with your child's achievement according to our pro gram" is really an extension of edu cationists viewing pupils as wards of the state instead of the children of txucsts who !h* Ifgal wards. The next step, of course, is to compel parental attendance or dic tate what they are to do to assist in the program they may not like. And then other government agen cies will also detail what parents are supposed to do. Our educationists doubtless have read the "liberal" presses' notification that Commu nism is dead! There are some hopeful signs, however. I discovered this week to my great delight a restaurant in western Carolina who fished the wa ters of cultural sanity with his McGuffey Readers, a six-page book of "lessons" detailing menu selec tions. And the city of Hartford, Conn., contracted with private enterprises to manage its public schools. And parents can now for less than $100 buy the materials to teach their chil Is There Life Past The Checkout Lane? I'm not sure what to think about the theory of reincarnation. But I tend to become more of a believer each time I get into the check-out line at a su permarket or department store. Judging from my experiences in these commonplace situations, 1 get the feeling I must have done some thing truly horrendous to a cashier during a past life. As a result, I am forever being paid back for my indis cretion. I'm not a shopper by nature. I don't like to "browse" or "window shop" or join in any of those other bargain-hunting rituals so dear to our consumer society. When I go into a store, I usually know exactly what I want. So I walk briskly straight to where those items are. I put them in my little buggy and head for the door. Where the real fun begins. Most big supermarkets and department stores these days have giant check-out areas that look like a cattle stockyard. These are equipped with 20 or more of the latest high-tech laser activated universal -pnce-code read ing belt-driven counter/register modules complete with scales, credit-card swipers and light-emitting-diode panels displaying the running total of each customer's purchases. ' ^