WALT GARDNER'S letter called for a classic experimental design to determine if the University Park school works ("Parents' intent," April 23). But one doesn't need random assignment to determine whether a school works. It's already pretty clear that a school works when its core constituencies - parents, students, teachers, and governance - all buy into and help maintain the expressed culture of learning and discipline that drives the school's operations.
There are plenty of examples of this - University Park is one, and the Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter Public School is another. Schools fail when one or more of their constituencies do not buy into or support the culture. So instead of cookie-cutter schools, why not create dozens of schools with different cultures that meet the needs and desires of parents and students who might choose to go there and teachers who might choose to work there?
ROBERT GUEN
ROBERT W. CONSALVO
Hyde Park
The writers are cofounders of the Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter Public School.
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