Rudy Alexander (Public Forum, June 17) could consider his time well spent in appreciation of the programs at East Carolina University that bear his name, and so let these of us who have been fat and are now thin (190 to 120) and those who need to lose weight and find it quite difficult to do so, to attend to being as we are. And, no punishment.

Besides, the problem with ineffective schools is not so much a lack of money as it is with a lack of leadership, both nationally and statewide.

And, those leaders may not be readily available since they must come from the current culture.

That culture is the basic cause of the schools not being all that they could be.

VANN LATHAM

Greenville