Merit Pay for Teachers

Re “Merit Pay Proposed for L.A. Teachers,” March 4: District officials are out of touch with classroom and school-site realities. Many variables exist at any school that would prevent the success of merit pay. Take into account the following daily obstacles: The student who checked out of school for six weeks only to return after living in a car for that period of time, the attention-deficit-disorder student whose parents refuse to take him to a doctor, six hours of jackhammering outside the classroom during instructional time, five discipline problems placed in the class by administration, or the student who arrived at school well after the first bell rang because he/she was visiting dad in jail.

My biggest fear is students being exposed to teachers pitted against each other for a mere $2,000. It is easy to understand why my profession is having a difficult time recruiting the finest students out of college.

CARYN MORISETTE

Burbank

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I take issue with school board member Caprice Young’s comment about holding teachers “to the same standard” as those in the private sector. The problem is that teachers don’t work under the same conditions that Young enjoyed at IBM, her former employer. Does anyone really think that IBM professionals have ceiling tiles fall on their clients (substitute “student” for “client”) or that clients sometimes have to sit on the floor or tables because of a lack of chairs? Do they have to meet with clients and/or colleagues in offices without heat and air-conditioning?

Teachers at the LAUSD high school where I am a faculty member don’t even have the equivalent of an office. Because of overcrowding, teachers share classrooms and have no suitable place to go during their time to lesson-plan and grade or review student work. In addition, Times readers are well aware that teachers do not have adequate supplies of textbooks and other instructional materials; in fact, most teachers spend hundreds of dollars of their own money on classroom supplies.

In order for the district to hold teachers to the same standards as those in the private sector, it must provide similar working conditions.

GARY GARCIA

Whittier

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So now they want to give “merit pay” to teachers. Well, how about all the administrators and politicians who got the schools into the state they’re in? Oh, I forgot, they’re on the inverse merit pay system.

SAM COTTEN

Santa Monica