Khachigian Fails the Truth Test

* The July 20 rant of Kenneth L. Khachigian (“State Teachers Fail the Test of Real Reform “) cannot go without rebuttal. It is yet another of his know-nothing diatribes cast to appeal to the conservative right, whose avowed goal is total destruction of the public school system in this nation.

His primary targets this time are the teachers organizations, primarily the National Education Assn. and the California Teachers Assn. I invite Khachigian to name an organization in this nation or state that does more or fights harder for kids and schools. And what’s more, [their members] do it with their hard-earned dues, not political handouts.

After long, hard days before their students, they participate in workshops and meetings to advocate better curricula, adequate buildings, modern equipment, quality textbooks, instructional quality and decent working conditions. What is so wrong with that?

Khachigian is gnawing away on an old bone in new dress--teacher performance ratings. This scheme has been tossed out periodically for more than half a century. To date, nobody has come up with an answer to what happens to the teachers who don’t get top ratings. Every parent has the right to demand, and every child has the right to be taught by the stars, haven’t they? California enacted a system of periodic rating of all teachers some 20 or more years ago. It works.

The problem in California and in every other state is that there are too few recruits of star stature being attracted into the profession, which pays less than virtually any other category of college graduates. Only those with a sense of mission find teaching an attractive occupation. The others, typical products of our money-driven system of values, go for the bottom line. So Lois Tinson, California Teachers Assn. president, urged teachers to go for their share of education’s windfall in new money. Why not? Would you respect them more if they tugged at their forelocks and trudged back to their overcrowded classrooms, overworked and underpaid?

In spite of all the nasty things Khachigian and his coterie of followers can use to whip the schools for their failure to resolve all society’s ills, The Times just finished running a series of reports on the successes of the public schools--test scores improved, record numbers of graduates, incredible adaptation to new smaller classes in primary grades! Who did all these things? Teachers and their young charges, day in and day out, year after year, in spite of all the inadequacies visited on them by a parsimonious public.

JOSEPH L. McCLEARY

Dana Point

* Kenneth L. Khachigian does a disservice to millions of teachers in this country, and thousands in the state, who belong to the National Education Assn. and the California Teachers Assn.

He would like to believe, and have the public believe as well, that these millions are held in thrall by union bosses who issue marching orders which are then slavishly followed under penalty of punishment.

This is, in reality, a fantasy indulged in by a number of ideologues who demean and defame public education with the ultimate goal of funneling public tax dollars into private and religious schools by means of vouchers.

In pursuit of their goal they are not above misrepresenting and distorting the facts. Included in this “big lie” technique are claims that public education is a failure and that the dropout rate is soaring, claims refuted by numerous studies, including one done by the Sandia National Laboratories at the behest of the Bush administration.

Khachigian expresses chagrin that Proposition 174, the voucher scheme for which he was “chief strategist,” was overwhelmingly rejected by the voters in 1993. He must have been stung by this rebuke, delivered by a concerned and educated electorate. Perhaps this is the source of his continuing antipathy to the California Teachers Assn. and, by extension, the teachers in the local schools who believe in, and are active in, that organization.

DAN SHEPARD

President

District Educators Assn.

Huntington Beach