(Ed. Note: The following letter was sent to Newsday and is printed here at the author's request.)

I was shocked and outraged by the blatant prejudice in John Hildebrand's article on Levittown's Division Avenue High School. Since when has it become OK to demean our "blue collar" workers, the laborers, technicians, craftsmen, artists and people in service industries, the very foundation of American society, as "lunch-pail" carriers from the wrong side of the tracks (or Turnpike) who need to be rescued, eliminated or patronizingly swept out of sight.

I am a resident and an English teacher in Levittown and have spent over 30 years trying to raise academic standards and to encourage all students to work harder and to take pride in good hard work. Will driving non-college bound and special education students, who by the way come from both sides of town, out of a building, improve education, or merely skew those almighty percentages which are reported by the news media?

It certainly is biting the hand that feeds you to come from the outside and turn up one's nose at the hardworking people who pay your salary. Should we encourage all of our kids to have higher academic aspirations? Certainly. Do we, like our parents and grandparents (blue collar workers, many of them), want more for our own children? Of course. Do we want our community divided by some imaginary line and characterized as "white trash" and "lunch-pail carriers" by the people hired to teach and support them? Hardly. And what about farmers? I guess that they, too, should be eliminated from the American scene. Of course, they recognize a pile of manure when they see it.