Improvements for Teaching

I read with great interest the series of articles written by Anne C. Roark on preparing, recruiting and retaining excellent teachers (Part I, March 13-16). The series very effectively publicized the growing belief that the key to improving the schools lies in improving the quality of teachers and the teaching environment.

Good teachers are the heart of effective education. Their preparation, performance, character and professional commitment are fundamental to the quality and effectiveness of schooling.

This is why I joined with state Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara) several years ago to carry legislation sponsored by the California Commission on the Teaching Profession to strengthen the process by which new teachers are evaluated for a teaching credential, and to provide the beginning teacher with a reduced class load and the support and supervision of a mentor teacher during the first critical year of teaching. That legislation was not successful, but it has been reintroduced in a slightly more modest form as SB 148 in the current legislative session. I was pleased to see The Times editorial (“The Teacher’s Lot,” March 20) characterize the bill as “. . . A program that would make a big difference.”

Although SB 148 represents a significant effort to improve the caliber of new teachers admitted to the profession, much more needs to be done to keep them in teaching and to enhance their effectiveness in the classroom. It has been asserted by at least one researcher in the field, that while state regulation has done much to keep wholly unprepared teachers out of the profession, it has not done much to attract and retain the most competent and able.

Reforms that have been suggested to achieve this are largely directed at giving teachers more control over the primary educational activities of a school, including: curriculum design; selection of materials; peer evaluation, including participation in decisions to hire, promote and grant tenure; in-service staff development, and teacher discipline.

Many of these proposals have not been supported by teacher organizations and school administrators because they tend to blur the otherwise comfortable distinction between management and labor.

Nonetheless, these are proposals that deserve our serious attention if teaching is to be made an attractive, more rewarding profession and one more competitive with occupations requiring similar preparation and training.

SEN. MARIAN BERGESON

R-Newport Beach