LETTERS: Brentwood school salaries, teacher accountability
Brentwood salaries cook up controversy
The story about job cuts in the Brentwood school district is symbolic of the problem facing Long Island taxpayers.
No one likes to see people lose their jobs, especially during this troubled economic time. However, the fact that this district had three people performing the same job as school cook manager - with salaries near or beyond $100,000 - is a travesty. Individuals with similar jobs in the private sector would be hard-pressed to earn half that.
Is it any surprise that taxpayers are drowning because of bloated and inefficient school budgets?
Michael Tartaglia
Embracing teacher
accountability
As a former teacher union president, high school principal and lifelong educator, I must voice strong agreement with the essay by Leonard Pitts Jr. .
For far too long, teacher unions have prioritized job security so tightly that it has served as a major obstacle to badly needed school reforms and improvements.
Our nation's schools are long overdue for systemic change and genuine reform. Teacher unions have the potential to be central catalysts and leaders for this needed reformation.
Stan Friedland
Leonard Pitts Jr.'s article provided readers with a simple resolution to the never-ending education problem. Newsday should reprint the article for one week for new readers to get the full story.
John Herman
The question that evades the politicians and pundits who are so eager to scapegoat teachers remains: How and by whom is accountability to be defined and measured? The perpetual answer is tests and more tests.
The problem is that tests measure how faithfully a teacher "taught to the test," how generously constructed or graded the test was, how privileged the students were, etc. All have little to do with real accountability.
Educators need to be respected, empowered and allowed to be innovative. Their performance should be measured not by standards of the business world or political arena, but by experienced educators who understand that learning is subject to complex factors.
Good teachers embrace accountability for the effort, caring, creativity and knowledge they show, and the growth, thinking, feeling and motivation for future learning that they stimulate in their students.
Alan M. Weber
Editor's note: The author is an assistant professor of early childhood education at Suffolk County Community College and has been a teacher and teacher educator for 35 years.
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