Readers React: ‘Fixing’ teacher tenure won’t improve schools. Giving them more money will
To the editor: The debate about how best to lay off teachers and reduce their tenure under the guise of “protecting the educational opportunities of California’s schoolchildren†is disingenuous as long as our per-pupil funding of public education ranks near the bottom of all states and fails to reach even the national average. (“California’s teacher tenure battle is reignited by Vergara appeal and a new bill,†May 25)
If the goal is really to improve educational opportunities, California needs to increase funding so that our class sizes and number of counselors, librarians and reading and math support staff are comparable to states in at least the middle of the rankings.
Dedicated teachers have never tolerated that small minority of lazy and ineffective colleagues, but this current challenge of hiring and firing standards is just an attempt to improve public education without having to spend additional money, and it will have minimal positive effects.
Meanwhile, good luck with that teacher shortage.
Kurt Page, Laguna Niguel
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