Advice & Dissent

Today, this page launches a weekly recap of selected Globe editorials and of on-line reader responses to them.

Challenge to charters
On Thursday, we supported Governor Patrick's proposal to raise the cap on charter schools, provided they do more to enroll bilingual and special education students. We urged the governor to protect charter school funding from unions and local officials who resent the competition for money.

Boston.com reader diezil commented: "Patrick's charter proposal is not the compromise outlined above but a Trojan horse designed to keep charters from ever becoming mainstream. Inclusion of special needs children is fundamental to their success. . . . This is just a mechanism to turn charters into the schools of choice for special needs students and no one else."

Similarly, creaky8122 wrote: "The state should encourage charters with a special mission to educate those who are left behind by the current system, but to entertain only such schools makes the whole charter experiment useless for general education."

Others were more skeptical of charters. BecknBuv-1 wrote: "Not all charters are successful, so why do we keep having to start more? When is it time to figure out what is working for the successful charters and apply it to the entire school system?"

Humm51 wrote: "Finally, an acknowledgement that charter schools do not deal with the same student body as other public schools. . . . I have no problem with charter schools, but let's stop claiming how much better they are when they don't deal with the very students that public schools must accept."

Concussions on the field
On Sunday, we highlighted new evidence that a serious brain disease caused by concussions can begin in football players and other contact-sport athletes as young as 18. We called on coaches and parents to make sure athletes who have suffered a concussion see a trained professsional before playing again.

Some readers saw the editorial as too accepting of the risks of certain sports. ProfWombat1 wrote: "The health benefits of football, as opposed to sports where hurting each other is less of a priority, seem dubious to me. You like football, you have to accept that very strong, very fast, very big people will do each other injuries, repeatedly, to long-lasting effect. You don't accept that, the kids can play something else that's equal or better in terms of physical benefit, but far less risky."

Rozinante2-1 agrees: ". . . if your sons intend to compete in college or the workplace at jobs that use their brains, and not their backs, you'd better pay attention. . . . Hockey has plenty of concussions too."