Annie & Athena

Last year David and I received a letter from the Agency for Educational Neglect. It informed us that Annie had been late or absent too many times during the school year, and unless we provided them with adequate written excuses for each time, someone would be "visiting" our home. Below is the letter David sent in response. It's just one of many examples of what a loving and committed father he is.

Regional Attendance Teacher:

In regard to your letter threatening to report my wife and me to the ominous and totalitarian sounding “Agency for Educational Neglect,” let’s first decide what constitutes “educational neglect.”

How about a system that relies almost exclusively on test scores as measures of success and forces teachers to use cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all curricula?

How about school officials at my daughter’s school approving the showing of Catwoman, a PG-13 movie with much violence and sexuality, to young, impressionable seven- and eight-year-old girls?

How about teachers who can’t handle their overcrowded classrooms and resort to screaming at their students, and playground attendants who do anything but attend to the children at recess?

Why have we not received explanations in writing of the more than 20 bumps to the head, scratches to the face and bruises to the body our daughter has received during recess over the course of school year 2004-05?

Does anyone at the Department of Education know the meaning of the term, “the pot calling the kettle black”?

Where can I report the Department of Education and the Amistad School for Educational Neglect?

My daughter is in second grade. Her reading level is at or above a fifth-grade level. She watches more televised crap at school than she watches at home. My daughter has a globe and an atlas of the world. She can point out Switzerland, she can point out Iraq, she can point out many other places, but she certainly did not learn any of this in a geography class at school. She learned this at home because we provided her with the tools to learn.

How dare you threaten us with Educational Neglect because our daughter was late to school or had a cold or the flu? Are you implying you will take away our child because SHE WAS LATE TO A SCHOOL THAT SHOWS INAPPROPRIATE AND IRRESPONSIBLE MOVIES, AND DEEMS IT UNIMPORTANT TO NOTIFY PARENTS WHEN THEIR CHILDREN SUFFER HEAD INJURIES AT RECESS?

You do not own my child. You don’t even really care about my child. You have proven to me that you can’t even properly teach my child. I can’t tell you how many different letters we have gotten from the school -- written by teachers and administrators -- that are filled with spelling and grammatical errors. It’s shocking.


Our daughter is a human being, not a robot. Nurture her, inspire her, protect her, and then we can talk about the Agency for Educational Neglect.

I will be forwarding a copy of this letter, and the letter you sent us, to our lawyer. We will be vigilant about checking for reprisals against my daughter and damaging comments inserted into her official record because of what I’ve written here.

And remember, with all its problems, this is still America. Not Soviet Russia. Not Nazi Germany. Not fascist Italy.

Oh, and here’s a reason why she was late one day: She was too engrossed in reading about Greek mythology -- you know, about Athena, the goddess of Wisdom? Fancy that -- Athena as a role model instead of Catwoman.




David Kosh
Father of Annie Kosh