Letter: Get serious about English skills

The shameful performance of eighth-graders on the English language proficiency tests should make their teachers, as well as the students themselves, wake up and get with the program! ["Too many left behind in LI's schools," Editorial, Aug. 12]

Not one district on all of Long Island saw 90 percent of its eighth-graders achieve proficiency on the English tests, and only nine of the districts saw 80 percent do so! Will somebody please tell these kids that college acceptance, not to mention future employment, will depend largely on their ability to write, speak and read effectively? And if students are not able to be "proficient" in English, their future success will be seriously compromised -- no matter how good they are at texting, tweeting and even coming up with the right numbers in advanced algebra.

Is it asking too much that schools and their faculties launch an all-out war on English ineptitude and motivate students to read and write?

George Haber, Jericho

Editor's note: The writer is a former faculty member at the New York Institute of Technology, where he headed the business and technical writing program.