I was appalled at the recent decision to incorporate calculators into the Chicago public school system`s curriculum for 4th through 8th graders, who supposedly have already mastered the skills of basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

One need only pick up a newspaper or turn on the nightly news to realize that Chicago public school students fared very poorly overall in the nation`s testing of reading, writing and arithmetic.

The cost to equip the students with these calculators is enormous. Many parents already have at least one in their home, anyway. Couldn`t the money be spent more wisely by decreasing class size, incorporating more and better drug abuse prevention programs or raising teachers` salaries?