Grading LAUSD Teachers

In response to Alfee Enciso’s column “ ‘Lemon’ Teachers Plague LAUSD,” (Voices, June 26) I agree that our schools are desperately in need of dynamic leadership and competent teachers. As a fifth-grade teacher and former United Teachers-Los Angeles chapter chair, I have seen students suffer under teachers who yell at them, encourage copying from textbooks because “that’s how kids learn English” or let them play noninstructional games during the literacy period.

I believe that teaching is one of the most demanding jobs out there, and the kids in the Los Angeles Unified School District deserve the best that we can offer. The teachers’ contract protects those who might be better suited (and do less damage) to other professions, such as a coffee barista. As for Enciso’s plan to allow principals to recruit their staffs, I would agree if the pickings weren’t quite so slim. Unfortunately, precious few professionals would ever consider an administrative position, which means that our current pool is woefully underprepared for the rigors of the principal role.

Katherine Borda

Los Angeles

To set the record straight, the “Learning Walk” that Alfee Enciso refers to was never implemented to be an “evaluation” of teacher performance. It is a tool, comprising teachers and administrators from the school, to drive professional development to enhance student learning.

Maybe Los Angeles Unified should start discarding some of the “lemon” literacy coaches that are plaguing the district and contributing to the low morale of hardworking and dedicated teachers by abusing the true function of “Learning Walks.”

Katie Rodgers

Valley Glen

In 1999, the California Legislature passed a law, which teachers refer to as the “Stull bill,” for the purpose of evaluating and dismissing incompetent teachers. Unfortunately, it also created a legal process that can be used by an allegedly incompetent teacher to retain his or her job for several years. Before the Stull bill, an incompetent teacher would be out on the street in two to three years. If administrators use the Stull evaluation effectively, it can help teachers do a better job.

There is also nothing that precludes a good administrator from going into classrooms to see if teachers are doing what they are supposed to be doing and providing positive educational leadership, support and encouragement to their teaching staff.

For the most part, the “Learning Walks” and related “outside” evaluations are dog-and-pony shows, as most schools know ahead of time when the “team” will show up and prepare for it. Most teachers do a good job most of the time, an excellent job some of the time and have down days like everyone else. The vast majority of us are dedicated to doing the best we can with what we’ve got.

If you want to blame someone for allowing alleged “lemon teachers” to remain in our educational environment, blame the Legislature, which set the criteria. Don’t blame the unions or the teachers. To do so is to use them as a scapegoat for more serious problems that plague our educational system.

George Kirby

Valencia

Most of the teachers I work with at 107th Street Elementary School are smart, dedicated and very, very hardworking. However, in the 18 years I’ve been there, children have described to me physical and emotional abuse by teachers, disgustingly gory stories told to them by their teachers and voodoo rituals in their classrooms.

Once a parent asked that her daughter be transferred to my class because the child’s stomach problems, caused by the teacher’s verbal abuse, were turning into an ulcer. After the move, the little girl recovered -- she’s in high school now -- but it took a year before her health could be described as normal. I saw her a few months ago, and we joked about her first kindergarten teacher.

All of these teachers were “permanent.” All but one of them, who retired a few years ago, still teach there.

Victoria Brago

Los Angeles

I had to chuckle when I read Enciso’s commentary on “lemon teachers” who “showed films weekly, played games daily, and (allegedly) mouthed inappropriate ... lines to his students.”

Maybe, horror of horrors, they were having fun learning!

John L. Uelmen

Newbury Park