Helping Disadvantaged Children Build Character We were encouraged to read Joe Nocera's Sept. 8 column, "Reading, Math and Grit." Through the nonprofit organization we founded, Exploring the Arts, we see firsthand the effect of teaching "noncognitive skills" to public high school students in New York City. Students who participate in our program face high expectations, without the notion that they already know the components of success, like persistence and professionalism. Working closely with their schools and arts mentors provides the opportunity to reinforce and model these characteristics. The arts require noncognitive skills, and when you bring them into education, you open up other learning opportunities. This common-sense type of engagement contributes to increased confidence, focus and professionalism in students of all means and backgrounds. Paul Tough's book "How Children Succeed" uses the word "grit" to describe the collection of qualities that will help children succeed. The terrific children our group serves have grit, and a lot of it. Our job, and that of all the adults in their lives, is to show them how to channel it, because in today's world, reading and math, without grit, just won't cut it. The writers are the singer and his wife. In reviewing Paul Tough's new book, "How Children Succeed," Joe Nocera is in sync with a Times editorial of March 20, 1995, "A Youth Program That Worked," in which you praised the Quantum Opportunities Program. Quantum showed that poor inner-city high school students could improve grades, graduate at higher rates and get into less trouble through quality after-school mentoring that promoted noncognitive skills as well as academic excellence. Today, some of us who are refining Quantum around the country recognize the importance of character-building and persistence by encouraging not just community service but also youth leadership. For example, in one inner-city school, student media advocacy resulted in improved standardized testing policy less biased against the poor. Quantum and a number of the successes in "How Children Succeed" were evaluated through random assignment of youths into program and control groups. To their credit, federal agencies like the Justice and Education Departments are now encouraging such evidence-based demonstrations of "what works." But isolated evidence-based proof is not enough. What works must be replicated to scale. For that, we need the "new will" called for by the 1968 Kerner Commission after the country's worst big-city riots. ALAN CURTIS President Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation Washington, Sept.