To protect teachers' rights and public interest, introduce binding arbitration

No matter which side you believe is right in the labor dispute between Kent's teachers and their district's management, we can all agree teachers should receive fair contracts and a teachers strike is never in the public interest. So when negotiations reach an impasse, how can they be resolved without teachers applying the pressure of a strike?

The answer is simple: Give both sides the right to request binding arbitration when contract negotiations on a particular issue have stalled.

State law does not guarantee or prohibit a right to strike for teachers, but state courts have always granted injunctions against teachers that choose to strike because of the "irreparable harm" a long strike would potentially cause.

State law specifically bars police and firemen from striking, but the law gives them the right to binding arbitration when they hit an impasse in bargaining to preserve some semblance of a level playing field during bargaining. If teachers can be forced to work by the courts even when they do not have a labor agreement, they absolutely need the ability to bring in a fair and neutral arbitrator during bargaining to help them ensure disputes over contract provisions can be resolved quickly and fairly.

This simple reform would dramatically streamline negotiations, thereby saving taxpayers and unions a lot of money and completely eliminating the annual ritual of looming strikes in Washington schools every September.

The Washington Education Association should organize a ballot initiative to change the law in Washington state to specifically provide the right for arbitration wherever state law will not provide the right to strike.

-- Pat Mead, Maple Valley

Fine striking teachers, cut administrators' positions, salaries

Each and every one of Kent School District's striking teachers should be fired or at the very least fined at least $500 per day retroactive to the first day of the strike. In addition, they should work the full 180 days but receive no pay for the days on strike.

If class size is the issue, then teachers should give up any pay raise and give money back so the district can hire new teachers.

However, on the other side, the district needs to rid itself of half the administrators and reduce salaries. What they make for what they do is downright obscene.

-- Lynn Folsom, Issaquah

Think the strike is bad? Try being a teacher

As a former high-school English teacher and football coach, I understand the Kent Teachers' Association's position and support their strike. The attitude of some members of the public and the Kent administrators needs adjustment.

They want and expect teachers to go into classrooms with 30-plus kids, and within a 55-minute period, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages and instill in them a love for learning. They want and expect teachers to check the kids' backpacks for weapons, counsel them on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases and raise their sense of self-esteem and personal pride. They want and expect teachers to teach kids patriotism and good citizenship; sportsmanship and fair play; and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook and apply for a job.

They want and expect teachers to recognize signs of anti-social behavior, and make sure the kids all pass the final exams. They want and expect teachers to provide an equal education regardless of the kids' disabilities while communicating regularly with parents in English, Spanish or any other language by letter, telephone, e-mail, newsletter and report card. And they want and expect teachers to do all that and more with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a bulletin board, a few books and a big smile.

All that and more is expected of teachers on a salary that qualifies most of them for food stamps. Yet teachers are castigated for striking for smaller classroom sizes, more time with their students and a pittance of a raise in salary.

-- Patrick Watson, Federal Way

Teachers are fighting for the quality of education

My wife and I have wisely decided to have only one child. The reason is not because we don't like children, but because it is much easier for us to manage if we only have one rascal than to have more than one.

My heart goes out to Kent School District teachers on strike, and I give them 100 percent of my support for their sad plight.

If I whine because it is tough to manage one child in my household, how much worse would it be if your job is to manage around 30 students in a single class by yourself at least six hours a day everyday? That is a mountainous job.

I don't blame teachers for their courage to go against the court injunction to go back to school to teach. Disobeying the court order doesn't mean teachers don't have regard for our court of law. It does mean that if they decide to go back to work against their consciences, the quality of education will certainly be affected.

Picture yourself as a teacher with 32 students of different ethnicities, traits, characters, idiosyncrasies, likes and dislikes. Do you think it's easy to manage that big of a class? I bet it would drive you nuts!

-- Warlie Villasencio, Kent

Teachers need time in detention

While I'm sympathetic to the goals of Kent School District's striking teachers and value the bargaining process, the teachers' decision to defy a court order is not OK.

They are teaching now in a very dramatic and visible way, as all adults do by their actions, that the judicial system doesn't apply to them -- only everyone else, I guess.

Will students respect guidance from teachers expecting rules to mean something when those expecting to be respected have publicly violated what a judge says? Will students feel respect for teachers who ignore the law, and instead of doing their job while continuing to negotiate, as professionals, have treated a court order the same way a hoodlum would?

This isn't OK. Kent teachers need to go to detention.

-- Kevin Grossman, Shoreline

Strike illegal, but will teachers face consequences?

For being educated people, striking Kent teachers don't seem to understand their strike is illegal, yet they still serve no consequence for their action. ["Kent teachers delay decision on whether to stay on strike," page one, Sept. 4.]

Kent teachers point their fingers at other school districts when they talk about money and class sizes, so why don't they leave the Kent District and go to those other districts?
The teachers' strike has caused the rescheduling of the start of classes, so why don't the students, parents and taxpayers insist the teachers' union pay the district's expenses for the period of time the strikes cost?

-- H. Lontz, Kent

A history lesson in strikes from the Boston Tea Party

Is there ever a right time to strike? A right time to break the law?

Some of my ancestors believed strongly it was right to remain loyal to the crown, so they moved to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada; others thought the law bad, so they disguised themselves as Native Americans and threw tea into Boston Harbor to protest.

These Americans thought they had an inalienable right to break a bad law.

I taught for 31 years, and I am sure there's more to the Kent teachers' strike than is on the surface. I say, "Throw the tea in the harbor."

-- Delbert O. Lawrence, Bellevue

Low teacher pay, oppressive administration at issue in strike

Editor, The Times:

As a 22-year occupational therapist (OT) and member of the Kent Education Association, I am personally appalled at how my very own school district administration is treating our dedicated staff in this bargaining process. Why are we still on strike?

First, we have a constitutional right to strike against an oppressive administration that has been disrespectful, dishonest and poorly responsive at the bargaining table.

Second, high class sizes and caseloads lead to ineffective teaching and too many mandated meetings interfere with our valuable intervention time with students.

Personally, I have seen my therapy caseloads increase by about 25 percent in the last five years.

Third, even with a $5,000 national certification stipend for specialists like OTs offered by the district, our base salary is so low that OTs in Seattle still make more money. Thus, we still have unfilled OT positions and students who will not receive legally mandated services.

Finally, I find it insulting that Kent has one of the largest rainy-day reserve funds and pays its administrators the most in the Puget Sound area, yet holds its teachers at the bottom of the pay ranks.

In Kent, we stand united as teaching staff and sincerely hope we can begin this school year by reaching a win-win agreement with the district, knowing that ultimately we are all after the same thing: a quality education for our children.

-- Rose Racicot, Kent

Teachers, administrators holding students hostage

Is it just possible that both management and labor are less committed to "students first" than they have always alleged?

The autumn threat of a teachers' strike is almost as regular as the annual spring flood in Western Washington. If students indeed come first, both management and labor would have resolved their differences long before students are due back at school.

Instead they have made students and families hostage of their dispute, which borders on the myopic.

-- H.T. Wong, Seattle

Stuffed classrooms threaten a healthy base for students

After going through seven years of schooling in the Kent School District, I saw why the teachers are striking.

It's ridiculous to be in a classroom with 35 students or more. My art class last year did not even have enough desks for all of the students in the class. I was in a math class with more than 30 students, and people still wonder why students are failing state tests.
It makes sense to have smaller class sizes. Teachers will have the time to get to every student. Education is the foundation of everything, and it's about time teachers and students started to fight for it.

-- Jackie Argueta, Kent

Righteousness found in the Rule of Law

If anyone in Seattle cares, part of what is wrong with our country and our educational system is in Danny Westneat's column ["Teachers strikes are different," NWWednesday, Sept. 2].

"Yesterday the head of Kent schools said the strike there is illegal. Probably so -- public employees generally don't have a right to walk off the job," Westneat wrote.

Whether it's legal or not, it is a technicality. What matters is whether the strike is righteous. This country was founded on the Rule of Law, that a law is not a technicality but something to which we must adhere.

That a columnist for a major city's newspaper can write, "Hey, this law isn't 'righteous' so it doesn't have to be obeyed;" to have a president indicate that "empathy" in a Supreme Court justice is as important as following the law, is to diminish the Rule of Law.

To encourage breaking a law when it is opposite to your belief is to encourage anarchy. In part, the reason our Founding Fathers started a revolution was that the laws of the king were arbitrary and capricious, not to mention discriminatory and favoring certain classes over others.

Now, Westneat and President Obama are essentially saying, "Yeah, if you don't like a law, break it."

Citizens of Seattle, think about this: If we have no Rule of Law, if we can arbitrarily break laws we don't like, especially if our teachers break laws they think are wrong, what does that teach their students, our kids, the future of America?

"Hey kids, the law is only a bothersome technicality so do whatever you want, what you think is righteous." I hope the union bosses get thrown in jail if for no other reason than to show our kids that this country is based on the Rule of Law.

-- Theodore M. Wight, Seattle

Students, not teachers, lifeblood of schools

I find the quote from Terri Brown, a sixth-grade teacher at Soos Creek Elementary, revealing in the article, "Kent district tries to force its teachers back to work" [page one, Sept. 2].

Brown says, "I can't believe instead of working with us, they [Kent School District administrators] take us to court. We're the teachers. We're the lifeblood of the schools."
But last time I checked, students are the lifeblood of a school. Perhaps Brown and her co-workers should all be fired and made to reapply for their jobs.

-- Tom Gates, Yakima

Put teachers back in the classroom

What frustrates the general public about teacher strikes is that the solution to teachers' concerns is always the same: more money toward salaries or to hire more employees. The mantra is always the same, too: Strikes are "for the kids" while, not surprisingly, the solutions always seem to benefit the adults.

Kent teachers say they are striking ["Kent teachers vote to strike as talks go on," page one, Aug. 27] for lower class sizes, and their solution is to hire more classroom teachers.
Here are the facts: The Kent School District Web site says the district serves 26,833 students and employs 3,292 people, of which 1,745 are teachers.

This is 15.4 students per teacher. If class sizes are too big, then a solution lies with the staffing ratio of non-classroom teachers.

It appears the actual average districtwide class size is about 25 students, which would fill about 1,073 classrooms, yet the Kent District employs 1,742 teachers. Simple math says there are 669 teachers who are not "in the classroom," and 1,550 other nonteaching positions.

Replacing non-classroom teachers with in-classroom teachers should not cost more money, and if done well, could actually save money.

I am confident the teachers will support this, since it is for the benefit of the kids.

-- Daniel Hillman, Tacoma

Reduce class sizes by bringing in fresh faces

How would raising the salary of the teachers in the Kent School District reduce class sizes?

I suggest we take away say 5 percent to 10 percent of teachers' salaries to hire new teachers to help downsize the numbers in the classrooms. They should be happy to eliminate the stress of so many children they are responsible for. How, I repeat how, can the classroom numbers be reined in by paying the existing teachers more?

Is the state ultimately responsible? We all (should) know the answer is yes. Even at the cost of loosing some overpriced art projects, we all have to fund in this state. Throwing more money at teachers will not diminish class sizes. Hire teachers, put people to work and replace the "deadwood" who have lost the desire to make a difference.

Please, hire new talent, and people who are interested in making a difference and glad to use their education. Now is the time to rid our educational system of the teachers who have lost their drive, as we cannot afford their expense or the negative impact they have on the children. We all know the ones we had in our time.

The teachers union should be at the front of this movement, if only for its members' jobs. The union is well aware of problematic teachers.

If the union chooses to defend them, it will become one of the untold unions in this country that was all about itself, not in touch with the reason it was even formed.

-- Richard Eirich, Kirkland

Teacher on strike? That will be $100 a day

I think it is about time to fine teachers so they suffer a monetary loss while striking -- something like $100 a day. Bargaining employees in other sectors suffer financially, and it takes real backbone to strike, but if they didn't lose anything there would be strikes all the time.

It takes a strong person to strike. Teachers can do it because they lose nothing and just create hardship on students and parents by late start and ending of the school year.
Financial loss is the only answer to stop them from going on strike so easily.

-- Ed Williams, Renton

Teachers look like fools striking during recession

Its amazing to me in a time when all workers are being asked to do a little more, stay a little late and perform a little better during a recession, the teachers in Kent School District and other districts go on strike.

Teachers have every summer off, every weekend and every holiday. In Kent, they have been asked to meet in the morning and afternoon; I have asked my management team to do so as well this year to ensure every penny is accounted for, and we are all on the same page and performing well.

It's amazing and a sad day for the unions again, when in the face of obvious hard times and struggles for everyone, they choose to stand up and make themselves and their members look foolish.

-- Thomas Olson, Sumner

Individual attention important to future success

Editor, The Times:

I am a 2003 graduate of the Washington state public school system now working in Portland. I've remained friends with several fantastic, supportive and inspiring teachers from my past, including several that are now working in the Kent School District.

As my K-12 school memories fade further into nostalgia and my agenda focuses more and more on my future theoretical children, the issues that the Kent teachers are fighting to amend ["Kent teachers vote to strike as talks go on," page one, Aug. 27] have a new sense of importance and urgency. We can't afford to let our kids suffer in large, anonymous classrooms and become nothing but a number in a district database. Not in a recession, not in a rebound, not ever.

Teachers and education are institutions that stay with us past high school, past college, into our daily lives to create successful and contributing adults. With attention and guidance from a young age, they teach us how to behave well and listen to others in classrooms and future board meetings. They teach us to respect each other and stop gossiping on the playground and around the coffee pot. They help us find how we learn and work best, so we can get our homework and our business proposals done.

Lessons like these, begun in the home and nurtured in the classroom, are much too important to compromise. It is with all this in mind, and at stake, that I put all my support behind the Kent teacher's strike.

-- Tabitha Blankenbiller, Wilsonville, Ore.

Teachers' raise a little relief in tough times

Let me get this straight. Many teachers have lost their jobs this fall due the financial meltdown of the marketplace. Those teachers who still have a job are facing higher classroom sizes due to the loss of their colleagues.

They will be working longer hours each day to keep up with their added responsibilities. The Legislature gave them a 0.6 percent pay cut by reducing the number of days they work by one day this year. And teachers' out-of-pocket expenses for family medical premiums will increase by around $100 per month more than the hundreds of dollars they already pay. And your Aug. 24 editorial ["Merit pay for teachers would end fight on pay," Opinion] complains because Seattle teachers got a 1 percent pay raise this year.

Don't you realize this 1 percent raise won't even cover the loss of state pay and the rise in monthly medical premiums? It's not like teachers' lives are getting any easier. If fact, this year will be extremely difficult for most workers in our state.

If you need to complain about pay raises or bonuses this year, then you should spend your time complaining about the outrageous raises and bonuses financial people on Wall Street and executives in board rooms are making this year. They are getting pay raises while teachers are taking an overall pay cut.

Stop blaming the average worker for trying to maintain their working wages in this economy, and demand financial institutions stop giving outrageous salaries to the very people who tanked our economy in the first place.

-- Peter G. Mohn, Bothell

Merit pay not a quick fix at all for improved education

The depth and breadth of the editorial board's ignorance of our educational system and of teachers' concerns and motivations took my breath away when I read the editorial on merit pay for teachers that appeared in The Times Aug. 24. In good conscience, I cannot let such a blatantly misleading portrayal of the situation stand unopposed by the facts.

The author states that, "Teachers are professionals who deserve strong compensation," immediately after an unveiled dig at the teachers' union for negotiating a 1 percent raise for its members "despite a recession meting out few raises anywhere."

Does the author support strong compensation for teachers or not? The snide remarks about teacher strikes being illegal further undermined my belief in the board's genuine support for teachers. By the way, if you were paying attention, you know that teachers in Bellevue felt compelled to strike because of detrimental teaching practices that had been foisted on them. Salary concerns were a secondary issue.

Merit pay is offensive to many teachers who, like me, bridle at the assumption that I would work harder to do a good job of educating my students if you paid me more. I wouldn't.

I work as hard as I can right now because I am a dedicated professional, and I have a very challenging job. Public education functions fundamentally differently from private industry, in which incentives like pay raises for increased productivity make sense.

People want educational reform because they want improved teaching and learning. Hallelujah! That takes a concerted effort over the long term with a significant investment of energy, research and resources.

If you'd like to know how it can be done, read the thoughtful article published in The Times about Finland. The Finns did it. It just took a commitment and plenty of money, a lot more than a futile quick fix like merit pay.

-- Marianne Clarke, Seattle

A stark picture made worse by merit pay in rough schools

It sounds so logical to tie student achievement to teacher's employment and or pay.
Teacher merit pay, based on a child's progress from A to Z, is inherently flawed and demeaning to teachers. You need only to teach or sub -- not just visit -- in the Seattle School District's "extremes" to be startled at the push for performance pay.

In the so-called failing schools, a teacher using all effort and resources may move a student only one bump on a progress chart. This hardly measurable step represents the best and deserves recognition.

In these poor achieving schools:

Income issues dominate family life, and one parent, grandparent or foster family are all too often the home life of many students. Parent involvement is minimal and adults at home are frequently victims of school failure while serious language and cultural issues run deep.

Class sizes can't be reduced but school aids are. Volunteers are few and far between. Discipline is complicated and daily disruptions rob children of learning.

Contrast this picture with "high performing" schools, which operate under the other side of all the negatives.

Contrary to the unchallenged mantra, we don't need to find and place the best teachers in our "failing" schools -- they are already there. We only need to honestly support them.

-- Michael McCullough, Seattle

In alternative schools, creativity thrives

Kudos to Lynne Varner for describing alternative public schools in Seattle as "models of creativity" ["State needs to hone its game in fight for education dollars," Opinion, column, Aug. 26]. Thanks also to Gov. Chris Gregoire, who also recognized that our programs can hold their own against the ever-popular charters: "The secretary was clear, that's what they're looking for -- nontraditional schools that allow students to excel," Gregoire told The Los Angeles Times. "I would like to show him some of our alternative schools and get his feedback."

As a parent of two children in public alternative programs, I have been disappointed that local leadership has been unable to recognize what alternative schools offer. The nonsupport we have become accustomed to over the last several administrations has turned into action that directly harms our programs under Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, including school closures, forced relocations and the loss of autonomy so central to the charter model.

We hope the district's alternative-school audit, scheduled for September, will highlight the innovation that has been happening in our district for decades. Otherwise, alternatives will be out, and we will be stuck with charters, which were recently shown in a national study to offer little improvement over traditional public schools.

-- Chris Stewart, Seattle

With merit pay, no way to determine who merits the money

Editor, The Times:

I see you've jumped onto the ever popular merit-pay bandwagon ["Merit pay for teachers would end fight on pay," Opinion, editorial, Aug. 24]. It sounds so good on paper.

But you argue it would take the steam out of salary negotiations? How? By paying a few teachers a little better but the majority less? The idea of rewarding the best teachers is appealing.

But no one, and I mean no one, has figured out an objective way to quantify best teaching. Many merit-pay plans have emerged. They are all deeply flawed. Principals get into most classrooms once or twice a year. Evaluations by students and parents can be manipulated and are not objective in any way.

Some of the most effective teachers are not the most popular. After all, they push students hard and don't always hand out the grades students and parents want. Every kid and every classroom is different. There are huge problems with performance testing. Any educator can tell you what they are.

Every fall, like clockwork, your editors turn the guns on those greedy teachers who dare to disrupt the beginning of school with their unreasonable demands. It's an easy story to sell. Fact is, it's a lot easier to blame teachers and spout simpleminded solutions than to dig a little deeper into the problems facing education in this state and report them.

-- Dan Reeder, Seattle

Education a collaborative effort that's too hard to put price tag on

The difficulty with merit pay is that it doesn't recognize the collaborative effort in building a student's skills.

I am a resource teacher, and I traditionally work with students who receive special-education services. However, due to the increasing demands of No Child Left Behind and Annual Yearly Progress, any student who struggles in school -- be it due to English-language acquisition, poverty or illness -- will likely receive reading, math and/or writing instruction from a resource teacher.

I had a student who could not read English in January; in June, he was reading nearly 100 words per minute, yet was considered to have not met the standard as his score was below grade level. Another student more than doubled her reading rate; again, since her June score was slightly below grade level, she did not meet the set standard.

If merit pay were in place, who would get the salary increase? The student's classroom teacher, who sees the child only for social studies and science? The resource specialist, who teaches the child reading two hours a day? The instructional assistant who works with the student in the before-school reading lab? The AmeriCorps volunteer the student receives math tutoring from? How about merit pay for the parent who makes the effort to get the child to school fed, clothed appropriately, on time and prepared to learn?

The trouble with merit pay is it assumes only one person is responsible for a student's achievement, and it fails to recognize the collaborative efforts necessary for a student's success.

-- Martha de Carbonel Patterson, Silverdale

With multiple evaluations, merit pay will work

Effective teachers should be rewarded for the work they do to help improve students' performance. Pay increases should be awarded based on a variety of different components, not just test scores.

Take, for example, the Denver Public Schools' ProComp system. Teachers earn bonuses based on four components: market incentives like teaching in challenging schools or hard-to-fill positions; student growth including, but not limited to, test scores; knowledge and skills like advanced degrees, national certification and professional development; and professional evaluations like satisfactory ratings from administrators.

The Kent School District recently sent a letter to community members stating that the Kent teacher's union had rejected its proposed pay increases. What the district failed to mention is that those pay increases would be tied directly to teachers' yearly performance evaluations and their students' WASL scores.

Though I support a form of merit pay, as a special-education teacher in a Title I school, I cannot support a pay increase that is based on whether or not my students pass the state test. There are far too many factors out of my control that impact my students' test-taking abilities. Did my students eat breakfast? Did they have a safe place to sleep the night before? Will there be food on the table for dinner?

Before teacher unions can agree to merit pay or a pay increase proposal in the case of Kent School District, fair and reasonable systems need to be developed that do not penalize teachers for factors out of their control.

-- Allison Wegg, Seattle

Here's an idea: Let's not give our jobs to foreigners

After reading "State schools reach overseas for teachers," I've heard it all [NWSunday, June 28].

Now we're bringing in foreign teachers! First, it was only farm workers, then landscapers and maids and now we've gone to importing nurses, engineers and finally teachers. The way Washington is going there won't be any jobs left for Americans. Maybe we can import some politicians who really represent the people who elected them and not their own agenda.

This country has got to start thinking about our citizens and their plight. In the news every day, more and more people are losing their jobs, their retirements and their 401(k)s and return to work just to survive.

Yet we have 12 visa programs to bring in foreigners. We let 1 million people come here legally each year. We have 20 million people who have stayed here when their visas expired or who were smuggled into the country. Politicians cry about illegal immigrants and their sad stories while they storm our streets and demand rights. Many of them have broken our laws, have forged identities and use our services that were meant for our citizens.

Since when were cheaters, stealers and liars held in such regard?

-- Kathleen E Bukoskey, Everett

Greedy employers hiring immigrants for cheap while ousting citizens

As an out-of-work U.S. citizen who has been employed as an instructor, I find this employer practice to be outrageous. It is another example of how immigration benefits are privatized and employers pay less while costs are socialized, with increased unemployment in a depressed economy. There is no shortage of teachers, only a shortage of teaching positions that pay a middle-class wage.

This program was invented by greedy employers in 1990. You may learn more about the corruption that is inherent in this program by reading online, "The Greedy Gates Immigration Gambit."

Then, apply pressure to end the practice of reserving high-skill positions for young immigrants -- and displacing experienced American citizens. You may help to save your own job and stop this race to the bottom.

-- Gene A. Nelson, Arlington, Va.

Students should have a say in who goes

Much of recent news involving Seattle Public Schools has focused on teachers being laid off throughout the district. Although I don't follow the news, this news has affected me personally.

I am a student of Seattle Public Schools and am currently losing one of the greatest teachers I have ever had. Anna-Marie James is my language-arts teacher. She not only teaches us English, but she teaches us about life and sometimes not even intentionally. Her spirit and her energy show me, and I hope my fellow classmates, how to appreciate everything around us.

Throughout this school year, our class has followed the regulated course line for language arts, but instead of monotonous projects, James' class is always a surprise. It would take a list longer than the Great Wall of China to say all the great things about James. She laughs, she makes jokes, she actually talks to her students. She is not just a great teacher, but also a great person, and it's depressing to know she's losing her job.

If students are the ones being taught, why don't we have a voice in who stays and who goes?

-- Elle DeBell, Seattle

Ageist assumptions ignore value of career experience

In his column Wednesday, Danny Westneat celebrates a new day when Seattle Public Schools will be free to lay off older teachers with seniority instead of newer, younger teachers with less experience ["Shake-up in schools coming soon," NWWednesday, May 27]. This marvelous new concept is founded on ageist assumptions and heralds practices that are illegal under pesky federal and state laws.

The effort by a small but vocal activist group to do away with seniority as a basis for retention assumes that older teachers are often past their heyday and are thus inherently less capable, ready to be tossed out on the dust heap. Long-term career experience is equated with deteriorating ability and loss of competence.

Overlooked is the value of accumulated career experience, and the requirement of continuing education that exceeds that of most occupations. Left out is the question of what happens to those who have dedicated their working lives to careers in service of educating our children with the expectation they will, in turn, have at least the guarantee of a secure retirement. Newer teachers to whom this effort appeals may also ask themselves how they will feel when they reach the time when they, too, are regarded as outmoded and ready for the dust bin.

I am sorry that in his zeal to promote this change, Westneat failed to give voice to these counterarguments and left out the views of those who have spent a lifetime in the field of education.

-- Ken Camper, Seattle

Blaming only one side widens the rift

Lynne Varner's opinion column ["Majoring in the minors," Opinion, May 20] seems to be trying to say that both Seattle Public Schools and the teachers union the should stop focusing on little stuff and take care of the big stuff. It appears that she is trying to take both sides to task. Yet her piece only lambastes the union, calling the union members "whiners," and "lost in the minutiae," claiming that they are making "plays on our sympathies."

The only criticism she makes of the district is that it gets distracted by all those terrible union complaints, implicitly putting even the blame for the district's distraction on the union.

The Times continues to be a cheerleading squad for the administration, rarely, if ever, recognizing the legitimate issues facing the rank-and-file educators. When you argue for the educators and administration to put aside their petty differences and work toward benefiting children, it would be helpful if you would not widen the rifts between administration and staff by ignoring the mistakes made by the administration and amplifying those of the staff.

-- Gordon Macdougall, Seattle

Focus on the cause: bad tax system

The guest column on May 20 by Andrew Kwatinetz ["Teacher retention should be based on effectiveness, not seniority," Opinion] proposes that Seattle's teachers be laid off based on their "performance evaluations" instead of seniority. That way, he says, "two popular, highly effective" teachers at his daughter's elementary school would have jobs next year.

He also states that the layoffs are "understandable" because "we are all making sacrifices."

No, the layoffs are not understandable. They are a tragedy caused by Washington state's inadequate and regressive tax system. State funding is so low -- 45th in the nation -- that Washington's class sizes are now fifth-highest in the nation. This was before the layoffs.

And not all are making sacrifices. Wealthy individuals and large companies pay low taxes in Washington, which is one of five states without an income tax. That's why the funding is so inadequate and why we are having massive teacher layoffs.

As to who is laid off, if performance evaluations were used, principals -- who write the evaluations -- would simply lay off any teacher they disliked, no matter how effective. Perhaps an unpopular teacher who demands "too much" from parents and students?

The teaching profession will not be made more attractive if teachers have to needlessly worry whether they have a job or if they have to make themselves more popular than their colleagues. If Kwatinetz and his organization want to keep good teachers, they should focus on the causes of the layoffs and demand adequate funding from a reformed tax system.

-- Kraig Peck, Woodinville

Both performance and seniority should be factors

The response to Andrew Kwatinetz's guest column has so far fallen along the predictable pro-union/anti-union lines. I would like to suggest there is a middle road.

As a parent and taxpayer, I find a contract specifically precluding performance indicators from personnel decisions to be extreme under any circumstances. It is also unreasonable --and in fact rarely practiced in the private world -- to scrap seniority completely in favor of performance measures. However, we have every right and every reason to ask for some consideration of performance to be included.

What if we started by asking that 10 percent of the criteria be based on a performance measure of the teacher's choice, including supervisor recommendation, peer/parent/student recommendations, WASL scores or documented September-to-May progress of students, etc. The goal would be to get some data about what kinds of evaluations are meaningful without creating unacceptable burdens on educators. Then, in the rose-colored future, the performance-based indicators could be increased over time to an appropriate weight in staffing decisions.

-- Chris Stewart, Seattle

Proposal without solid criteria is ineffective itself

Andrew Kwatinetz has joined the chorus calling for teachers to be retained during layoffs based on something he calls effectiveness ["Teacher retention should be based on effectiveness, not seniority," Opinion, guest column, May 20]. However, nowhere in his column is there a hint of how he would measure that.

When either professionals or laymen propose new ways of dealing with difficult situations, they owe everyone the intellectual honesty to offer some practical suggestion on implementation. Everyone is in favor of effective teachers, most especially teachers. The question is how to measure effectiveness in a way that is equitable, feasible and cost-effective.

If The Times or Kwatinetz were to suggest interstellar travel as a solution to overpopulation, we would expect some information of how to achieve it, but nowhere do we find even an outline of the plan to measure effectiveness. Until we see that plan, it is just pie in the sky -- it's pretty and looks sweet, but is ultimately without body or flavor.

-- Robert DuChaine, Buckley

Stalemate between district and union blocks change

Andrew Kwatinetz nails the biggest problem in Seattle Public Schools with his argument that teacher retention should be based on effectiveness, not seniority. Unfortunately, it won't happen without legislative intervention.

For more than 30 years, citizen pressure has failed to change key seniority provisions in the teachers' contract. There's no reason to believe parental demands -- even expressed by a leader as articulate as Kwatinetz -- will make any difference in the current round of negotiations.

The Seattle school district administration and the Seattle Education Association both claim to care about educational excellence above all, but are locked in an adversarial relationship whose common goal in contract talks is labor peace.

The solution: Diminish the power of both organizations. The means: charter schools.

-- Phillip Johnson, Seattle

It's about bad-faith negotiation

Once again, The Times has reinforced its reputation among teachers as biased toward administration and against actual teachers ["Union's ire over letter misdirected, unhelpful," Opinion, editorial, May 12].

The Times completely missed the point behind the anger with the non-continuation letters sent out Friday. It takes the district's word at face value and doesn't go any further in its analysis. I will concede that the Seattle Education Association's response was bungled. They missed the point, as did you.

The point is not the single day. This is also not some legal formality during contract negotiations as apparently the district is telling you. It's about bad-faith, union-busting, negotiation-circumventing tactics by the district.

The teachers operate year-to-year under a continuing contract that gets renegotiated periodically. They have in the past renegotiated work days, planning days, benefits, class size --all that is handled in contract negotiations.

Never before to my knowledge has the district sought to terminate all contracts through this law because of a need to change the contract. This is purely an attempt to circumvent the union negotiation, a process I'm sure Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson sees as a rather pesky and cumbersome one.

This is a bad-faith negotiation tactic. Basically, since all of the teachers have been non-renewed, they're possibly in the position of no negotiation at all. The teachers have, by all appearances, been given the option of taking the new contract or nothing.

What's almost comical is that your editorial faults the union for not understanding the financial position of the district. You give the district a pass for a "mistake" in sending the letters out Friday. However, Goodloe-Johnson's credibility is increasingly compromised at every turn -- making the announcement and sending the letters at the end of Teacher Appreciation Week right after sending an "appreciation" e-mail to all teachers. Then saying it wasn't intended to go out -- it was a "clerical error." Then saying they're obligated by law to notify teachers of the contract change, which is wholly untrue.

The union's only blunder was a PR one. They didn't make the right points in the right way.

The Times does so well in other areas, but its education coverage is so slanted with little to no investigation or research that it is completely unfair to those who dedicate their lives to educating our kids. They deserve more.

-- Julia Renouard, Shoreline

Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times

Part-time professor Dana Rush lectures during Astronomy 101 class at Green River Community College.

Editor, The Times:

Keith Hoeller's guest commentary ["Adjunct faculty at state's two-year schools deserve equal pay for equal work," Opinion, May 8] correctly describes community-college funding run amok.

Only 25 percent of the instructors are making a professional wage with the job security necessary for the legal requirements of academic freedom and freedom of speech. As ruled by the Washington State Supreme Court in Mader v. Health Care Authority, instructors are mis-classified as part-time and work 12-week contracts, often for years.

The result is that students are denied 100 percent, full-time instructors. The teachers unions are often staffed with faculty who move back and forth into administration, and therefore our bosses are often also our union reps.

Hoeller has aptly described a state of siege, where 75 percent of the instructors are kept under the iron heel of fake unions and fascist administrators. Gov. Chris Gregoire has done nothing but go along with the present "the-sky-is-falling" scenario.

If she really wanted to fund all the colleges and universities, she could easily do it. Instead, Gregoire, the unions and the colleges are working in collusion and cutting the students, teachers and our communities out of a chance to pursue life, liberty and happiness.

-- Teresa Knudsen, Spokane

Legislature should stop mulling, start acting

In a recession, the state Legislature cannot be expected to solve many problems. But irrespective of budgets, part-time instructors deserve equal opportunity, as Keith Hoeller argues in his commentary.

Hoeller mentions annual contracts, which, while far short of tenure, would be a terrific benefit for those part-time instructors "who have taught half-time for at least three years" and would not cost state taxpayers. Unfortunately, our Legislature has seemed more willing to "study the problem to death" than take corrective action.

It is a sad irony that we have a system that, in Hoeller's terms, aims to provide "expanded job opportunities for every citizen except the professors" who deliver the instruction.

Most immediately, the state should stipulate that state funds for paying part-time faculty unemployment should be returned to the state's general fund, as Hoeller proposes, not remain as an incentive for colleges to discourage part-time professors from applying for unemployment or challenge those claims when they do.

-- Jack Longmate, Poulsbo

Need respect within unions

The suggestion of allowing community college part-time faculty to form their own unions is common sense, but why is it such a distant dream?

Currently, I as a part-timer am forced by state law into the same union as the full-time tenured faculty, the patrons who blithely control the union despite token part-time participation. In many cases, the full-timers are the de facto bosses of the part-timers, even controlling whether or not we are rehired next quarter or whether or not we get extra assignments. Would you like to be in the same union as your own boss?

Part-timers will get little respect from the full-timer-dominated unions until the part-timers have the legal right to organize separately. That doesn't mean the part-timers must organize their own unions. It simply means that we could organize separately if the full-timers don't include us fairly in the union's efforts.

-- Doug Collins, Seattle

Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times

Maria Goodloe-Johnson is superintendent for Seattle Public Schools.

Written out of arrogance or ignorance?

Editor, The Times:

It vexes me why Seattle's school chief Maria Goodloe-Johnson failed to consult union officials before she wrote a letter to teachers about the reduction of paid days for next year ["School chief's letter vexes union," page one, May 9]. If she had taken the time to talk with the union, the whole problem could have easily been avoided.

It's quite a coincidence that an adjacent article reports that the management style of Paul Jackson, Seattle's manager of transportation, has come under City Council scrutiny ["Promotion of 'unsafe' manager questioned," page one, May 9]. While they're working on management practices, the council should ask Goodloe-Johnson if her letter to the teachers was written out of arrogance or ignorance.

-- Bill Whetham, Seattle

Union ignores students, pursues power

It's all about power, isn't it?

The Seattle Education Association is mad that it can't run Seattle Public Schools. They think they are co-superintendents and should have the final say on how the district runs.

Nowhere in the article do union spokespeople mention the children or education. You might think the union would be complaining that reduced class time means reduced success in education our children, but no --its complaint is about usurping the union's "rights."

Throughout the country, teachers unions are -- while giving lip service to education -- demanding policies that give them power. They insist on length of service as the criteria for pay increases. They fight back at the slightest suggestion that competency or merit should be reflected in their pay or that poor performance can result in termination.

In the last week, the Obama administration caved in to union pressure and let die an extremely successful scholarship program in Washington, D.C., which has one of the worst school systems in the country. Scholarships to private schools were given to a few students. Every report indicated that students in this program were far more successful than those in the D.C. system. About 10 applications were received for each vacancy. Never mind -- the power of the union was threatened.

Everyone agrees that today, as never before, a good education is essential for the success of the individual and for the nation. Everyone agrees, that is, except the unions, who would rather trade their power today for our country's future.

-- Henry Kroeger, Redmond

Eliminating the most valuable commodity

We hear a lot about cuts in teaching positions, but we haven't heard anything about elimination of administrative positions. My memory from university teaching/research and my wife's 20 years as a senior-high science teacher is that in tough times, deans, department chairmen and principals save the bureaucrats above all.

Teachers, of course, are the most valuable commodity. But watch the school boards cry, "We mustn't eliminate programs!" Teachers, yes, but programs, no. That would mean reducing the often-excessive number of administrators and counselors.

-- Luther E. Franklin, Issaquah

Out with the new, in with the old

I'm an amazing teacher. I'm young, vibrant, love what I do each day and am knowledgeable about the best practices in education. In fact, my final evaluation, written by my principal, started with the line, "Jessica is one of the best teachers in this school."

Why am I writing to an editor then? On Monday, there will be a letter waiting for me at school -- a "Reduction in Force" letter. This letter means that next year I, along with hundreds of other young, vibrant teachers across Washington, will not have a job. The funny thing is we suspect we didn't get our letters on Friday because it was the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week.

Who are the people replacing us? They are the people with far more experience -- try 35-plus years. They are the people who are tired, who complain around the lunch table about their rowdy classes, the people who teach using the "best practices" from 1985. These are the teachers who will be teaching our children next year.

Me, I'm crossing my fingers that I'll hear back about an application I put in at Nordstrom. I hear those employee discounts are pretty great.

-- Jessica Simonson, Everett

Budget cuts kill newest jobs

As a music teacher with my job on the line ["Education cuts mean layoffs of newest teachers," NWWednesday, April 19], I think many people -- especially younger teachers -- feel the same way I do.

Low on the Totem Pole
There's no way to tell for certain
If I'm coming back next year.
They might just close the curtain
On my entire career.

Sure, I hardly get paid a dime,
That's less than most of my peers.
But I guess my only crime
Has been working only three years.

I'm low on the totem pole
But not the lowest -- that's really swell.
I think of all those lowly souls
Who don't stand a blessed chance in ... teaching.

There's no way to tell for certain
If I'm coming back next year.
But if I must change my profession,
I'm going to be a political engineer.

-- Justin Galicic, Federal Way

How is it determined?

Isabel D'Ambrosio ["Performance pay for teachers: a basic way to reward success," Northwest4 Voices, March 24] and others seem to favor merit pay for teachers. But they never once, even by accident, suggest how to determine "merit."

Is a teacher with more degrees worth more? Is a bad science or math teacher better than a great history teacher? Do you judge the teacher by the school -- i.e. good school equals good teacher? Do you test the students in every subject twice a year to see if the teacher merits more or less pay?

D'Ambrosio says teachers must "accept being evaluated." Just to set the record straight, teachers are formally evaluated by their supervisor twice each year. I have a drawer full of positive evaluations ... suppose next year I have a different evaluator: Should my pay be cut if the new evaluator likes a different style of teaching?

Please people, if you have suggestions that include some kind of knowledge of the subject and realistic, pragmatic and descriptive suggestions for judging merit, have the courtesy to explain them and leave off the vague, normative or utopian prescription.

-- Robert DuChaine, Buckley

How do you measure "merit"?

Thanks to Danny Westneat for pointing out the inherent injustice of basing teacher pay on "merit" when neither Wall Street nor virtually any other system does ["Is Wall Street best model for fixing our schools?" Local News, March 22).

But the real issue is that there is no fair, workable method for measuring teacher "merit." Using test scores sounds good politically, but isn't a valid way to measure a teacher's effectiveness, just as it wouldn't be a valid way to measure the effectiveness of a police officer, firefighter, doctor, etc.

Crime rates are always going to be lowest in affluent suburbs. Should we pay a suburban officer whose most dangerous duty is shooing away skateboarders more than we should pay an inner-city cop who endures nightly gang wars, domestic violence and being shot at? Why not? The inner city has higher crime rates and the suburbs lower rates.

Should we pay firefighters in a small town whose occupation consists primarily of Ping-Pong and cat rescue more than inner-city firefighters who daily must attempt to patch up victims of car accidents, shootings, drug overdoses, etc.? Why not? There are fewer emergency calls in the small town.

Some of the hardest-working, smartest and most-dedicated teachers in the country work in inner-city schools with test scores lower than affluent suburbs. I'm not a teacher, but I have worked along side some of the best teachers in the country as a speech-language pathologist in Seattle Public Schools for 14 years.

The teachers in many districts with lower test scores work with children who speak English as a second language and whose parents also don't speak English, so they're not able to help with homework.

Many more students in inner cities receive free or reduced lunch (a fairly accurate indicator of a student's financial circumstances) and live in families in which both parents must work long hours at varying times. Some of these students may not have an acceptable place to sleep, let alone study.

Not only will those students have lower initial tests scores than their affluent peers, but their rate of learning and of increasing their test scores will be lower due to these factors.
Paying many teachers less because their students have lower test scores is like paying some firefighters and police officers less because they respond to more frequent and more potentially dangerous incidents.

-- Kurt Herzog, Edmonds

Consider the impact of test scores
Isabel D'Ambrosia's letter about the virtues of merit pay ["A basic way to reward success," Northwest Voices, March 24] fails to consider the impact test scores have had on the average child's school experience.
Would D'Ambrosia want her child in a classroom and school whose central goal is to have her child score higher on a state test? That emphasis discourages innovation, personalization, an exposure to and experience of all the arts.
Some argue that what we now call education is more an inculcation, and that a true education can only be had in a private school with no ties to state assessments.
-- Joel Gillman, Bellingham

A basic way to reward success

Danny Westneat's column is an irresponsible way of looking at the reforms the Washington Legislature is considering for teacher pay ["Is Wall Street best model for fixing our schools," Local News, March 22]. The column is sensationalism at its worst -- it twists the scandalous, sexy news from Wall Street to torpedo good basic schools legislation.

No one is asking the teachers to adopt a Wall Street model for merit pay. What happened on Wall Street is an extreme example of capitalism out of control. But that is not what happens every day, and has worked very well in private industry for many years -- and it will continue to work well.

Engineers, accountants, doctors, nurses and even journalists are constantly evaluated for performance by their peers and their superiors. Business works as well as it does because the best are allowed to move up and nonperformers are shown the door.

If teachers want to be paid and respected like engineers and accountants, then they will need to accept being evaluated like them. This has nothing to do with crazy bonuses and the odd antics of Wall Street. It's just a basic system to reward the top performers and make our schools so much stronger in the process.

-- Isabel D'Ambrosia, Seattle

Pay isn't everything

Performance pay for teachers is a bad idea.

The best teachers do not do it for the pay. They do it because they are driven to instill in young minds the joy of learning what makes the world tick.

The gratification of succeeding at this is their performance pay. At any rate, who is to decide who the best teachers are?

-- G. R. Upchurch, Woodinville