Evaluating teachers; high-tech parking meters; John Boehner’s future

Teachers and parents

Re “Parents have the right to know,” Column, Aug. 23

Indisputably, we teachers serve the public. Parents have a right — nay, a duty — to know what’s going on in the classrooms and on standardized measurements.

But let’s not confuse teacher efficacy with test scores. A teacher’s real job is to humanize our students through academics, arts, humanities and self-discipline. We steer kids through the myriad horrors of growing up in the

21st century, and inspire them to be lifelong learners

any way we can.

If people want higher test scores, they’ll get higher test scores. I just hope they don’t complain when that’s all they get.

Richard Mandl

Canoga Park

At the outset of his column, George Skelton says that “grading teachers based on how much their students learn should be a no-brainer.”

He assumes it’s English and math — in quantifiable form, of course. Who decided that? Certainly not the students. That wonderful desire to learn we see in every youngster, and their enjoyment when they do, is slowly denied them by the threat of flunking out. By middle school, many are ready to drop out.

When are we going to allow students to have a say in what they learn, when and how much — if, that is, it’s quantifiable?

Tom Robischon

Los Angeles

Skelton has a valid point regarding measuring a teacher’s effectiveness by comparing students’ grades on standardized tests this year with last year.

Care must be taken, however, that this “accountability factor” does not become the primary factor in measuring a teacher’s effectiveness. Student motivation to improve has to come from the student, and is derived primarily from the parents. No teacher can instill that desire without the parents’ willingness to work with the kid.

I am not a teacher, but I know and volunteer with many of them. Their often-stated complaint to me is that they cannot get parents interested in their children’s education. If mom and dad think a teacher’s job is to baby-sit their offspring, that is what they will get.

Tom Reinberger

Glendora

If you want to use a child’s test scores to evaluate a teacher, then that evaluation must show the entire picture of the child to determine accuracy.

I suggest to you a report as follows: To the Parents of Johnny Cal: Your son, who is a first-year English-language learner, in his fifth-grade class of 38 students, including 13 students who speak other languages, with five special-education students (whose assistants were not in class with them), who was absent an average of three days a month, who never turned in any homework, whose parents never came to any school activities, responded to any school notices and may or may not be able to help him with schoolwork, scored in the 50th percentile. Please understand your teacher used a curriculum she did not design but is mandated to use, and followed a pacing plan imposed on her. The testing company was very impressed with his dot-to-dot pattern on the response sheet that resembles a happy face.

Lucia Arias

Northridge

Skelton wrote: “Children are being graded. Their teachers should be too.”

In the name of fairness, how about grading parents? As a teacher, I observed a world of difference in the success of children who had been taught respect for adults. They took responsibility for their actions in class, knew how to listen and were on time. They became successful students.

Yes, their test scores represented good teaching plus their receptiveness to what was being taught.

There must be new technological “toys” invented to measure successful parenting. Fair judgment demands this.

Tamara Lipson

Long Beach

As a former L.A. Unified teacher who was “in the know,” your article was spot on. Parents, students and Socratic-type teachers are not allowed to state baldly that teachers are not equal (gasp!).

The teachers union has a dilemma. The problem rests with trying to protect poor to useless teachers while forgetting the goal of educating most of the students.

We must teach children to read and to think. Learning is up to the children, with boosts from the parents and the community. I once heard a brilliant teacher comment: “I teach; it is the student’s job to learn.”

Patricia Watson

Los Angeles

Parking meter paranoia

Re “The goal: Make parking easier,” Aug 22

The headline on your story should be rewritten to more accurately state, “The goal: Make parking more expensive.” And speaking of expense, the seriously in-debt city amazingly found enough money to install “10,000 high-tech parking meters”?

Jon Konjoyan

Toluca Lake

Though the new technology has many good attributes, the one I continually look for continues to be missing — paying for actual time parked.

It must have been determined long ago that it was not in the best interests of the municipalities to look for such a solution. For what other product or service are we so willing to readily pay for more than we use?

Why not leave the system the way it is for coin-paying patrons but allow us debit/credit card payers to choose a maximum amount of time?

There might be a slight learning curve, but it seems a simple way to be fair to everybody. Unless, of course, that’s not the goal.

Robert Hall

Hollywood

Speaker Boehner?

Re “Boehner considers the future,” Aug. 22

Regarding the article on Ohio Republican John Boehner’s future, I am more concerned about the future of we average citizens. He definitely seems to be a friend to the very rich and powerful. He has spoken against the extension of unemployment benefits, saying that they will make the deficit worse. But he is in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts for the very rich.

On a weekend talk show, he repeatedly failed to give a simple yes or no answer to whether he supported raising the retirement age for Social Security to 70.

He has commented that banking and Wall Street reform was like using an atom bomb on an ant hill. The unregulated abuses of the financial community have cost a lot of us average, hard-working people jobs, homes and savings.

So, if you want Boehner as speaker of the House, vote often and vote Republican.

Jim Conway

Woodland Hills

Your piece offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a conservative. Boehner is a “grown-up,” we are told, and the evidence for this apparently is his rising on the floor of the House to thunder “Hell, no!” to the Obama administration’s proposals.

It is hard to imagine anyone admiring a man who steadfastly opposes providing relief for people without medical insurance, creating jobs for the unemployed and regulating our egregiously reckless financial institutions — and whose opposition is based not on any longstanding set of principles but on his palpable desire to become House speaker.

To the mind of this liberal, Boehner seems more adolescent than adult, and his attitude can be seen as a two-year-long temper tantrum over his party’s defeat in 2008.

Catherine McCallum

Monrovia

I read your article while vacationing here. It misses an important point. Boehner doesn’t include “earmarks” (pork) for his constituents in pending legislation. Considering the damage that thousands of earmarks, in each major piece of legislation, do to our economy, choosing Boehner as the future speaker is very important. We need one honest man in charge.

Phillip Hermes

New Carlisle, Ohio