To the editors:
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You might like to take a journalistic look at programs and schools that do try to promote scholarship; the International Baccalaureate Program at Lincoln Park High School is one. Lincoln Park is the area high school for the gang members from Cabrini-Green. The Board of Education changed the name of the school and added the “I.B.” program to attract good scholars. The students in the “I.B.” group are warned to maintain very low profiles because they are despised by the rest of the student body. They are not allowed to have fund-raisers for their activities as the other student groups do because they would be attacked. Each day, many of the students cross parts of Oz Park to get to transportation or their homes. Often they are followed and harassed by other students.
Interview teachers at elementary schools who must deal with the problems caused by former students and their pals who return to encourage current students to ditch school. Administration and security can do their best to keep these influences out of the buildings but they wait at the edge of the playgrounds.
