Standards for Teachers

I couldn’t agree more with George Skelton’s Jan. 13 column. I have encountered many new, enthusiastic and talented teachers in my nine years of teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District, but experience does count. Making it policy to staff the schools with rookies because teaching has become an unattractive career is not good leadership. Better leadership would be to find ways to entice new teachers to stay in teaching.

BRUCE T. BEVANS

San Pedro

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Re “Teachers Should Be Graded on How Well Their Students Are Learning,” Commentary, Jan. 13: Chester E. Finn Jr. and Danielle Dunne Wilcox raise some good questions about the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, but their overall criticism is akin to faulting a fish for lacking feathers. Evaluating teachers on the basis of their students’ performance is neither the board’s method nor its purpose.

I was board-certified last November. When people ask if it means that I’m some kind of superhero in the classroom, I say certainly not. It means I take my profession seriously, I work hard and I have benefited from a process of rigorous reflection on my teaching practices. If my students are going to improve, I have to improve, and I believe it is fair to say I’ve taken some steps in that direction.

All Finn and Wilcox seem to want to do is replace carrots with sticks.

RICHARD LAVIN

Huntington Park

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I agree with Tom Iannucci (letter, Jan. 13). Higher teacher salaries would result in more and better teachers. Each semester I teach three large general education classes. I ask my students, “Who will become a teacher?” Out of 80 students in each class, maybe two will raise their hands. What about the best and brightest? They are looking to business and the bottom line.

METCHE F. FRANKE

Laguna Woods

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I am in my fourth year of teaching physics and see simple solutions to the state’s lagging educational performance. Simple solutions, however, often require bold leadership. Gov. Gray Davis has missed the boat with his proposed spending plan. Here are three simple steps that must be taken to improve our educational system:

1. Remove the teacher tenure system that does not encourage innovation and effort.

2. Improve teacher pay. All teachers know that they will not get rich teaching; that is not why we teach. However, with a booming economy and low unemployment, we must be more competitive in attracting quality youth to an essential profession.

3. Replace dilapidated schools with new state-of-the-art structures. The setting children learn in tells them volumes about how important their learning is to us.

We get what we pay for, and right now we lag far behind a nation that already spends too little.

DAN STEPENOSKY

Santa Monica

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Your story of Jan. 8 on Gov. Davis’ teaching incentives made reference to several concerns by classroom teachers but failed to point out how the state and the governor’s budget proposal address these concerns. Principal Arne Rubenstein of 93rd Street School reportedly thinks the state should make it possible for an experienced teacher to work full-time with five or six newcomers. The Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Program provides just that support. This successful program for new teachers is fully funded in Davis’ current-year budget and again--with $87 million--in the 2000-01 budget, so that every first- and second-year teacher may benefit from mentor support of veteran colleagues.

The Times favorably describes K-12/university partnerships for beginning teachers, such as the intern program at Normandie Avenue School. Davis expands dramatically the teacher intern program supported by such partnerships, adding 5,400 additional teacher interns for a total of 12,700. Davis is also proposing a $2,000 bonus for teachers who get their credentials and commit to serving four years in low-performing schools.

Davis’ 2000-01 budget includes nearly $600 million for textbooks and instructional materials. That brings funding for books and supplies under the Davis administration to more than $1.3 billion, or $237 per student.

GARY K. HART

Secretary for Education

Sacramento