DRUG WAR HURTS

Editor -- Your trenchant analysis of school testing scores sees through
hype and confusion to point out what it really comes down to: poverty.

It's not difficult to see the important role played by our drug war in the
transfer of wealth from the lowest rungs of the economic ladder to the very
highest. Increased policing, prison construction and a greatly expanded
prison population have all siphoned money away from education and health
care while at the same time serving to keep the targeted populations mired
in poverty.

TOM O'CONNELL
San Mateo