To the editor: Paul Thornton's words in honor of teachers were greatly appreciated by me and probably most of the teachers who read his article. Yes, teachers are mostly underpaid and many would be encouraged to stay in the profession if they could afford basic amenities like housing.
However, many people enter the teaching profession knowing that they will probably never earn a better than average salary. Teacher salaries have never been good (because it is a predominantly female occupation?) and probably never will be.
There is a way to improve the teaching profession while increasing resources for children without additional tax dollars.
As things stand now, teachers have little to no power when it comes to making decisions about instruction, curriculum, and classroom resources. For example, few teachers would approve of requiring four-year-old transitional kindergarteners to take the standardized DIBELS test, as the Los Angeles Unified School District did until recently. Teachers know that huge amounts of money are wasted 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 would see a huge improvement in job satisfaction, learning, and money for classroom resources.
Linda Mele Johnson, Long Beach
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To the editor: I am a retired teacher after 20 years and one of the many lessons my students taught me was that learning comes from relationships, whether with teachers or peers.
That's what keeps teachers in the classrooms despite countless obstacles. Only another teacher can know how hard a job is.
We teachers do not need superficial manufactured gestures, because we daily obtain satisfaction, big or small, from our colleagues, our students and their parents. For the lucky ones like me, that's enough.
As for affordable housing, perhaps developers could be incentivized to reserve below-market units for new teachers. More and better ideas are needed.
If teacher morale is low, we all pay the price.
Michele Harris Padrón, Santa Barbara
