Readers React: The right to know about our teachers

To the editor: Supt. John Deasy should feel embarrassed to admit that Los Angeles Unified School District teachers are so petty that learning another teacher was more effective than they would engender resentment and jealousy among teachers, spur “unhealthy” comparisons among staff and cause some instructors to leave the district. (“Judges rule against letting public see LAUSD teachers’ performance,” July 23)

If what Deasy is saying is true, a fact about which I am incredulous, then teacher hiring practices need revamping. The response to learning that another teacher is more effective than you should be to ask for teaching tips.

The three-judge panel ought to be ashamed as well for calling it a “specter” when parents demand that their children be taught by the highest quality teachers. When the judges’ rich friends clamor to pay top dollar for their children to have a place in the highest performing private schools, do the judges call it a “specter” then?

Adreana Langston, Long Beach

..

To the editor: I think it’s quite sad that anyone thinks the answer to the problems in our educational system is to publicly shame teachers as if they are criminals.

It doesn’t take much common sense to figure out what would happen on any school campus where teachers’ names were released in connection to their job performance. Anyone remember the teacher who killed himself, a death that those close to him said might be blamed on his “value added” rankings being published?

Parents and staff already know the “good” and “bad” teachers on campus. If real reform is to occur in education, the focus needs to be on making it easier get rid of those teachers and administrators who aren’t pulling their weight, among other things.

Christine Kopfstein, Costa Mesa