Letters: Evaluating teachers, school costs

"To improve schools, focus on culture" [Opinion, Jan. 6] has highlighted a valid concept.

The role of the principal in supporting new and seasoned teachers is vital, and can create an environment where everyone is focused upon what is best for the students. Assisting, mentoring, modeling and teaching teachers to teach can be accomplished with care and dignity.

Those teachers who can become good or great should be positively motivated each day. For those who cannot make the grade, the administrator should not recommend tenure.

Michael Wolk, South Huntington

Editor's note: The writer is a retired Long Island elementary school principal.
 

I am also frustrated with the current system of evaluation ["Evaluation frustration," Editorial, Jan. 8]. There are some things that are overlooked in objectifying a subjective profession. Nobody really knows how a child learns to read, for example.

Evaluations are important, and there are bad teachers. Administrators should have the courage to dismiss bad teachers in the three years that they are given before tenure is granted.

However, how do you evaluate a teacher in a school system that might have prejudice as a systemic issue? Teachers who are not gentle or politically correct with parents are often vilified. Administrators often have not spent years in a classroom and may not understand the everyday challenges and stress. Societal problems that teachers have no control over visit their classrooms.

One solution might be to let other teachers play a part in teacher evaluations.

Schools should be islands of learning that provide consistency and safety in an often chaotic world and dysfunctional family life.

Charles Greco, Eastport

Editor's note: The writer is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist.
 

There is nothing cheap about BOCES ["Don't shortchange LI education," Opinion, Dec. 16]. School districts are required to pay for BOCES' administrative services even if they are not using its programs.

In special education, you have to add up tuition, related service costs and transportation expenses if you want to determine the per-pupil cost. In the 2010-11 school year, the per-pupil cost for sending a student to a BOCES special education program from my school district was approximately $88,600.

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act stated that these programs were to be evaluated for their effectiveness. These evaluations are never shared. What if they reveal that the students getting the most costly education in the country, and who will need a lifetime of care and support services even after graduating, are in fact mentally still children?

We need to define the word "education" and state the competencies and skills educated people should be expected to have.

Jane Goldblatt, East Northport

Editor's note: The writer is a retired special education teacher.