To the editor: Paul Thornton’s words honoring teachers were greatly appreciated by me, and probably by most teachers who read his piece. Yes, teachers are mostly underpaid, and many would be encouraged to stay in the profession if they could afford basics such as housing.
However, many people enter the teaching profession knowing that they will likely never earn a better-than-average salary. Salaries for teachers have never been good (because it’s a mostly female occupation?) and probably never will be.
There is one way to improve the profession of teaching while increasing the resources for children without additional tax money.
As it is now, teachers have little or no power when it comes to making decisions regarding instruction, curriculum and classroom resources. For example, few teachers would approve requiring four-year-old transitional kindergartners to take the DIBELS standardized test, as the Los Angeles Unified School District did until recently. Teachers know that enormous amounts of money are wasted in this way every year.
Efforts to empower teachers and parents have largely failed for many reasons. If the state could find a way to put decision-making in the hands of teachers, I suspect we’d see a big improvement in job satisfaction, learning and money for classroom resources.
Linda Mele Johnson, Long Beach
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To the editor: I’m a retired teacher after 20 years, and one of the many lessons my students taught me was that learning blossoms from relationships, be it with teachers or peers.
That is what keeps teachers in the classroom despite the countless obstacles. Only another teacher can know how hard a job it is.
We teachers don’t need manufactured superficial gestures, because we get daily satisfaction in ways large and small from our colleagues, our students and their parents. For lucky ones like me, that’s sufficient.
As for affordable housing, perhaps developers could be incentivized to set aside below-market units for new teachers. More and better ideas are needed.
If teacher morale is low, we all pay the price.
Michele Harris Padron, Santa Barbara
