Friday, May 18, 2012

Letter to School News Editor

If there is any publication which more dramatically extenuates the tension between fiction and reality, I fear that dubious distinction belongs to "School News."

The impressive horde of superintendents published in your newspaper presents a false image that all is well in public education.

On the contrary, having worked as a substitute or full-time teacher in many of these schools, the welfare and well-being of public education is in dismal decline.

Just two days ago, the press announced that a dedicated team of students has filed a lawsuit against the state, the governor, the state superintendent, and the Los Angeles Unified School District. They allege that they are forced to suffer incompetent teachers who cannot be fired because of unworkable contractual agreements which benefit the teacher and the unions, not the student, not the parents, and certainly not the state.

While schools are constructing state-of-the-art facilities, as advertised in your publication, our students are hardly receiving a state-of-the-art education. I am greatly offended that school districts and state officials in education are paying more attention to the outside of ours schools instead of the small successes and growing failures which are taking place unaware inside.

With fourth graders in Lynwood who still cannot read, with LAUSD protecting predatory teachers, with Centinela Valley routinely firing its best teachers and propping up the worst, and Torrance Unified struggling 40+ students in every class, the disheartening state of affairs of our schools contrast jarringly with the serene, beaming optimism of the top-tier bureaucrats published lavishly in your periodical.

Instead of promoting the non-employment of district leaders who have no business directing the enterprises of public education, your editors should provide arguments for school vouchers, teacher tenure reform, reduction in teacher pension payouts, and above all end the choke-hold that the California Teachers Association has on Sacramento.

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