Readers React: An A-plus teaching assessment

To the editor: I’m a retired teacher, and lived through many educational pendulum swings during 44 years in the classroom. Lily Eskelsen Garcia says so clearly what I, and so many of my fellow teachers, have felt for years. ( “A lesson plan for teachers,” Column, Aug. 23)

I’ve seen gifted teachers railroaded out of the classroom for resisting a management style that slavishly demanded following rules that were not conducive to real learning.

These were teachers who, like Garcia, related beautifully to young children and, as I witnessed, were hardworking and dedicated.

The suppression of teacher creativity has been ongoing for years, and it has intensified during this No Child Left Behind era. Creativity needs room for experimentation.

American schools can’t afford to stifle young minds with tests that supplant valuable teaching time and don’t contribute to the learning process.

Teachers want tests that truly inform their teaching, but “the prizes and punishments in districts where teachers’ jobs depend on student test scores” are detrimental in the extreme.

I could go on, but thank you, Sandy Banks, for a column that justifies once again the checks I write in support of this paper.

Pam Johnson, Orange

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