Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
‘Indivisible’
The New York Sun’s editorial, “Indivisible,” hit home [November 3, 2004]. Hurrah to New York City Council members Simcha Felder and Dennis Gallagher for their successful effort to include the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of Council sessions. There is a related situation at patriotic ceremonies when our children stand mute as our traditional songs are played. Even during the Olympics, our winning American teams usually stand in silence as the “Star Spangled Banner” is played. By contrast, Olympic winners of other nations proudly sing their national anthems. Our World War II “greatest generation” knew and still sing our patriotic songs, having learned them in elementary school. I propose that our patriotic songs be taught to our New York City children in the public schools, as was the standard practice in years past. It is part of civic education and also an excellent way to instill in new immigrants the proud heritage expressed by our patriotic songs.
CAROL LYONS
Irvington, N.Y.
‘After the Ball Game’
In endorsing Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz’s call for the removal of, or drastic altering of, four provisions currently in the teachers’ contract, The New York Sun trades in a number of myths and misunderstandings [“After the Ball Game,” Editorial, October 27, 2004].
The most serious of your concerns is that of expediting the removal of incompetent teachers. As a veteran teacher, I can say that all good teachers are embarrassed by the presence of the unstable or academically weak among our ranks. But you failed to mention that Randi Weingarten last year proposed a very workable solution to the problem.
Under her plan, a teacher judged to be incompetent could be compelled to leave the system within 90 days. At the same time, principals who give a “U” rating to strong teachers, whether out of a personal animus or because the teacher doesn’t, for instance, have the requisite number of Post-its on her bulletin board (this actually happened in the Diana Lam/Carmen Farina era) would have the same 90 days to prove their case and then have to cease their harassment if they fail to.
The call to eliminate longevity as the prime criterion for teacher assignments ignores the fact that most teachers in good schools put in their time in the wrecks of schools that the city finds so hard to staff. Sending them back will lead many of them to flee the system. New, talented teachers who start out in the trenches will also know that their competence ensures that they’ll be stuck in the trenches forever. As it is, the attrition rate among teachers is staggering.
Anyway, the logic behind this call is suspect. Bad schools are not bad primarily because they lack competent teachers, but because the students do not have the parental support that students in better schools have. To compound things, the city has for decades tolerated dangerous and disruptive students in the classroom and done nothing to demand parental involvement.
As for the concern about “inefficient work rules” – a term the Sun should not toss out without elaborating on – let it be known that the mayor continues to be big on getting teachers back into the lunchroom to monitor the proceedings. How this increases a teacher’s contribution to the quality of education he has yet to establish. What it certainly would do is burden teachers with a tedious and, in the case of many high schools and middle schools, dangerous assignment.
Skepticism about differential pay wouldn’t run so high if administrators did not routinely castigate teachers who hold children to high standards, regardless of how dismal the statistics looked – the cases of administrators hectoring teachers to change grades are legion. But the main problem with the call for different pay scales is that it asks the United Federation of Teachers to dig its own grave as a union. All trade unions base their strength on fostering solidarity and a sense of common interests. The UFT cannot be expected to do anything that would spawn a series of sub-groups or, worse, a feeling among teachers that they are independent contractors.
Critics of the UFT see a teachers’ contract shorn of most of the gains of recent decades as Mayor Bloomberg’s last great battle to win control of New York’s schools. But what has the mayor done so far with the formidable power he wrested from the old Board of Education? His point men and women at the Department of Education have installed totalitarian “progressive” education policies, where students sit five days a week in groups “constructing their own knowledge,” and where administrators can give an unsatisfactory observation report to a teacher whose “mini-lesson” (the ideal lesson, the progressive gurus tell us) exceeds the allotted 10 minutes.
In such a regime, the last thing students and their parents need is a corps of teachers even more at the mercy of administrators.
STUART ROSE
Fresh Meadows, N.Y.
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