To the editor:
Mr. Burnham's response (Times, Nov. 13) to my letter (Times, Nov. 11) accused me of a "smear" and "attack" on his daughter. I neither smeared nor attacked her. I only observed that, in the front-page photograph from the City Hall charter school demonstration, the girls' faces were contorted.
Mr. Burnham also accused me of "bloviating" and stating a "canard." The primary meaning of "bloviated" is "lengthy." My letter was 31รขÑ2 column inches long; his was nearly 20.
A "canard" is an "unfounded story." Yet anyone who spends half an hour on the Web looking under "charter schools" will realize that my statement that charter schools educate children better than competing public schools is most definitely not unfounded. It is, in fact, incontrovertibly well founded and accurate.
William G. Reinecke
Gloucester
