To the editor:

We were pleased to read your editorial, “State should ease off on teachers” (Sept. 21).

You made excellent points about how the conditions of teaching and learning in a school can affect gains in student learning and in particular gains measured by standardized test scores.

We’d welcome more dialogue about how shifting the burden for funding public education from the state to the local community has negatively impacted teaching and learning conditions (via increased class sizes, elimination of programs, etc.)

We also agree with your suggestion that local measures (negotiated by the district and the union) are far better for evaluating teachers than the unreliable, convoluted, New York state “growth scores” which are based on how students do when they take the flawed, corporately produced “state tests” in grades 3 to 8.

However, there are some points in your editorial that we believe warrant clarification.

You state, “It’s harder than ever … to remove a bad teacher.”

The fact is that a teacher can essentially be dismissed at any time with no due process during a (now four-year) probationary period, a probationary period that is far longer than any other New York state public employee or most private employees.

Also, for tenured educators, a due-process hearing must be completed in 180 days, and even faster in some cases. “Tenure” is hardly a golden ticket to full employment no matter what. It simply provides a due process hearing in which the district has to actually demonstrate in front of a neutral hearing officer that a teacher has acted in a way that warrants losing his or her job.

All in all, your editorial is evidence that shaming and blaming teachers for society’s problems and calling it “education policy” is rapidly falling out of fashion.

We say the end to policies such as this can’t come fast enough. If politicians, bureaucrats and corporate interests are serious about heeding your advice to “lay off,” most educators would welcome the idea of working collaboratively on what’s most important: helping kids learn and succeed.

Respectfully,

Melissa DeVit

Don Carlisto

Co-presidents

Saranac Lake Teachers’ Association

Saranac Lake