Basic Skills and Quality Education

Re “Newport-Mesa Teachers Retire Amid Allegations,” June 15:

Horror of horrors! Teachers right here in Costa Mesa have been uncovered teaching basic skills. Make them retire for such a gross abuse in the system. Their interest in the test should be commended.

I’m sure their future with the district was not in jeopardy as intimated by the Board of Trustees member wanting an investigation of the kind of pressures put upon them to perpetrate such an act.

The Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills annual testing process disrupts the instructional program, bores the students who have little motivation to perform on long tedious testing days and has for umpteen years failed to improve anything since it was created for the Iowa schools in the Dark Ages.

What kind of anti-social behavior has really happened here? How many careers depend upon commercial schools providing cram sessions to pass the examinations necessary for licensing in their profession? How about the following: doctor, lawyer, dentist, nurse, chiropractor, stock broker, insurance agent, IRS enrolled agent, and any other licensed profession.

Come on, when are superintendents and school boards going to get real? Do basic skills need to be kept a secret?

THOMAS E. KOLANOSKI

Costa Mesa

* Your June 15 editorial (“People Really Do Recognize the Importance of Education”) was very timely. As another school year comes to a close, it’s reflection time--a process which most educators, parents and students experience annually.

It is not surprising that the majority of the people polled reaffirmed their faith in the public educational system. Those of us who are products of the public education system and are working in the system must continue to protect and improve the delivery of instruction by finding alternative methods and materials to reach our diverse student body. An eclectic approach in methodology and materials may be best for most of our culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.

As class sizes normalize and become more manageable for the teachers, the multitude of problems with which a teacher must cope and contain on an hourly basis will minimize. Those teachers who have experienced smaller class size, this first year, are already noting a remarkable increase in attention span in the children and retention of the subject matter being taught.

In the public schools where there is extensive interaction between the community and schools, the schools are better monitored and maintained. The community knows their school is their responsibility and in this school, teachers are respected, loved and obeyed because of this outreach. School principals who make an effort to visit the home of their consumers (students) are greatly rewarded by this effort.

Too bad community aides are no longer employed by most districts. These aides were paid minimally, but the returns were great; for they bridged the gap between community and schools.

With welfare reform and the technological revolution staring us in the face, we must be ever watchful of striking a wise balance between the demands of technological literacy and the mastery of basic education as the editorial noted.

The one problem which has plagued our educational system forever is the single-issue politics and how to keep politics out of our educational academic system. There never seems to be a balance; either extreme left or extreme right. And unfortunately it is our students and community who suffer and are victims of these extremes.

It is time to leave education to our educators and administration to the administrators while keeping a watchful eye on extremes. We, products and providers of public education, need to keep on the cutting edge. Thanks, teachers, for another year and a job well done.

ENRIQUETA LOPEZ RAMOS

Santa Ana