L.A. and its disappearing murals; teachers and The Times; Paris Hilton arrested

Missing L.A.’s murals

Re “Patt Morrison asks: Judy Baca, Muralista,” Aug. 28

Patt Morrison’s interview should be enlarged and decoupaged into a mural on a wall in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s office, and onto all four walls in City Council chambers.

What’s happened to these works of art in our city is an embarrassment and a shame. Every drive I take past the site of Kent Twitchell’s lost “Freeway Lady,” I see her ghost.

The politics of graffiti removal and the new anti-supergraphics law as described by Judy Baca would be funny if they weren’t so tragic.

What’s next? Book burning? Our city officials probably wouldn’t care about that either. I know — let’s burn all the billboards. Maybe that would get someone’s attention.

Denise Clemen

South Pasadena

The Times and the teachers

Re “No gold stars for excellent L.A. teaching,” Aug. 29

I am elated to see The Times expose how teachers are evaluated in our public education system.

The article confirmed what I’ve long suspected — that the bad teachers do not get weeded out because the system does not distinguish between ineffective and successful teachers.

We should not blame the worthless teacher evaluation methods only on the politics of the teachers unions, how tenure is keeping the status quo or on how kids from poor and immigrant neighborhood are more difficult. Another issue is inferior leadership. A good leader selects good team members, inspires them toward a measurable and achievable goal, and is continuously searching for improvements.

If a principal or an administrator cannot recognize a teacher who excels in teaching from one who is there waiting for a paycheck, then leadership is absent. That bureaucrat should be fired.

Christine Ng

Redondo Beach

I believe that as educators, some of us have long resisted being evaluated by our students’ test scores out of fear that the scores would not accurately reflect our students’ academic growth. In part this fear comes from the myriad variables that teachers have no control over in the students’ personal lives.

There is another critical issue, however, that has been overlooked: The tests by which we might be evaluated have no meaning for students. California’s standardized tests are low-stakes exams for students, and secondary students are especially aware of this fact. The tests do not affect their classes, their grades or their possibility for graduation.

We do our best at schools to emphasize the importance of the tests; still, we are at the mercy of our students’ goodwill and ultimately can only hope they try their best on these tests.

Though I believe we should be accountable

for our students’ growth during their time in our classes, it seems blatantly unfair to use an inherently low-stakes test as a high-stakes measure for teachers and schools.

Teryne Dorret

Van Nuys

The analogy of “value-added” assessment to the achievement of Jaime Escalante’s students is entirely inappropriate. Passing the AP calculus exam is a remarkable accomplishment and requires much more than mastery of the bare minimum on a basic skills test. To suggest the two are equivalent demeans both Escalante and his students.

Assuming it is accurate, value-added can only tell us who is best at teaching the basics.

Moreover, the article seems to make interpretative leaps from the data that are unwarranted. Though you agree that no one knows why some teachers score higher on the value-added measurement, you choose examples that point to rigor as the answer. One teacher pushes her students while another from the first article thinks the mandated vocabulary tests are too difficult for her grade level. Two anecdotes, of course, do not evidence make. Some teachers may score well because of rigor, and I hope that is the reason. But others may score well because they teach to the test.

Michael McLendon

South Pasadena

Thanks for putting a face not only on good teachers but also on the students they help. I’m sure that there are many others like Zenaida Tan in L.A. Unified, but she is a great representative. Alas, how many Karina Reynas didn’t get a teacher like Tan?

Until the teachers union realizes that not all teachers are the same while insisting that only seniority matters, many students will continue to be shortchanged under our current system.

I hope the fact that Tan was herself an immigrant will not be lost on those who blame school problems on children of illegal immigrants. I wonder how many parents of Tan’s students wondered how a teacher with an accent could help their children learn English. I thank her for showing that many of our preconceived notions can be terribly wrong.

Hector Santos

Los Angeles

What wonderful reporting on value-added. It is the shadow side of human nature: for unions to condemn any effort to single out the best teachers, for teachers to worry that any measure of teacher effectiveness will unfairly target them, for parents to exaggerate the importance of any one measure that helps them discern what’s going on behind the closed doors of their children’s classrooms, for principals to avoid evaluating and promoting the best teachers knowing the “can of worms” (to use the words of one principal) it will open.

We don’t need studies to show us how to identify the effective teachers; any entity that promotes based on merit knows how. L.A. Unified knows how. If unions, teachers, parents and principals dare to overcome our inertia, the kids will get the teachers, and hence the education, they deserve. If not, not.

Roger Schwarz

Los Angeles

It is a welcome surprise that The Times is taking on the teachers unions; about time!

However, I think you are missing a very large part of the problem. I am currently paying, on my property tax bill, for three school bond issues. I don’t recall, in my voting lifetime, when there was not a proposition on the ballot asking for more money for schools. Obviously, from your recent articles, money is not the save all to end all.

The part of the problem you are missing is where the money is going. The

old liberal mantra of throwing more money at the problem obviously isn’t working.

Alan Andreasen

Mission Viejo

It’s the gym that needs a scan

Re “Gyms using finger scans,” Business, Aug. 28

I don’t get the “privacy” complaints associated with the new finger scan, especially with so many technical devices we all use these days tracking our every move.

My gripe is with my poorly maintained gym itself.

In fact, one can only hope this new “finger scan” will release some of the staff from behind their desks and get them out onto the gym floor, where they can provide some overall upkeep on the place.

Maybe then I’ll believe people are actually trying to sneak into the place to work out.

Conrad Corral

West Hollywood

We’ll always have Paris

Re “Hilton denies the drugs in the purse she carried were hers,” Aug. 31

Should we really be surprised to hear that Paris Hilton was once again arrested? To think that something like this is actually “breaking news” on television and treated as a sport. What happened to meaningful news that excluded drunken and drugged celebrities?

Why should we care if Hilton is forced to pay her dues like everyone else? Let’s hope this time around her sentence lasts a lot longer than a few days and the price of a penny.

Danielle Turner

Ontario

Congratulations to Hilton for getting herself back in the news. The “it’s not mine, it’s a friend’s” is the oldest line in the book.

It was not her cocaine or purse, yet her money, lip balm and asthma medicine were in there? Right.

Cassandra Gaffney

West Hills