Don't blame teachers for bad schools

Kudos to Steven Klees for his op-ed on the school administrators' manifesto. ("The superintendents' wrong solution," Oct. 22). As a Baltimore City teacher, I was heartened to read so sensible an analysis. The current "blame the teachers" trend in our country's educational debate is particularly ironic: Since when have teachers made the decisions about how our public schools are run? Since when have teachers been consulted about curriculum development or about whether the educational practice du jour makes any sense? I can't think of another profession that has a more top-down decision-making process than public education, except for the armed forces. Yet now, teachers are held solely accountable for student performance.

I was particularly gratified to see Mr. Klees revive the call for smaller classes. What is the principal difference between public schools and high-achieving private schools? Class size, of course. The money promised for higher teacher salaries based on improved student performance in the recently proposed contract should really go to hiring more teachers so that students can get more instruction, attention, practice, help and support in smaller classes. That would really make a difference in their performance. That our administrators can't conceive of this only shows how long it has been since they worked in a classroom.

Andrew McBee, Baltimore