Unfettered Letters

Merit pay for teachers

The Obama administration is considering merit pay for teachers as part of plan to revamp education (3/11, A-1, “Top teachers should get better pay, Obama urges”).

Consider the teacher facing 25 students who struggle with poverty, living with single parents who hold minimum wage jobs. Consider the constant threat of unsafe neighborhoods. Remove the principal as support. Substitute a “book” in which to record disruptions. Observe emotionally scarred kids quarreling, vying for attention and lacking basic self-discipline. Observe the teachers, haggard from fatigue and frustration.

Over the past 20 years, teachers have been mandated more parental responsibilities. Before these changes, discipline problems were addressed at home. Today the teacher is expected to parent and can be criticized for a student’s lack of self-control.

Often the merit rests in showing up every day, in caring, in the effort to educate so the cycle is broken. The responsibility for molding self-discipline in a child rests with the parents.

Merit pay might work as an incentive, but the protocol has to include teachers who continue to care, especially in circumstances where test scores might not, or cannot, fully reflect the dedication of those educators.

Pat Antonopoulos
Parkville

Millicent Daugherty made an impact

Some people travel through life leaving a light imprint. Others stride through life, savoring each moment, giving joy and touching lives and communities deeply. This would describe Millicent Daugherty, who lived life to the fullest until the very last (2/12, Local, “Familial bond stood the test of time”). I knew her as a teacher and organizer, and she was brilliant at both. She demanded the very best from her students, and she got it.

She was everything a teacher should be: an expert in her field, a leader, compassionate, demanding, cajoling, caring and loving. Students wanted to do their best for her because they realized they were in the presence of greatness.

As well as the Music/Arts Institute she founded, she organized the music division of the George Caleb Bingham Academy of the Arts. On one of our field trips to the Kansas City Chamber Music presentation, I sat in front of her by several rows. We were asked to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was not long until the magnificent voice of Millicent encouraged us to stop singing and to listen. After the concert, audience members sought her out to praise her.

Millicent’s imprint will last forever. Brilliance never dies.

Janice Malott
Independence

Missouri money, foreign cars

Am I the only one who noticed that director M. Steve Yoakum and other executives of the Missouri’s Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems board chose not to support the employees and many retirees of the American auto industry who live in Missouri? (10/19, A-1, “Apple for the teacher, but luxury for execs”) By purchasing Toyota Camrys, they instead sent the profit out of the country.

W.C. Ruckman
Kansas City

Teachers’ retirement fund

As a teacher, I was appalled after reading “Apple for the teacher, but luxury for execs” (10/19, A-1). I spoke to many other teachers about our retirement money being abused.

I cannot tell you how many times I have bragged about feeling financially secure, because I understood my retirement money was well protected.

With the economic crunch going on and having to shell out 13 percent of our monthly paycheck, it is hard for most teachers in the Public School and Education Employee Retirement System. Then we hear board members are using our money to take lavish trips, stay in five-star hotels, drink alcoholic beverages and receive cars with gas.

To reassure members oversight is adequate, M. Steve Yoakum, one of those given a 2009 Camry and paid $253,000 a year, tells us, “We’ve got 200,000 members that are looking over our shoulders all the time.”

Well, Mr. Yoakum, I am one of those members, and this is the first I ever heard about irresponsible board spending.

SaDonna DeVaney
Blue Springs

Teachers’ retirement system

Judy Thomas’s article (10/19, A-1, “Apple for the teacher, but luxury for execs”) on the Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems of Missouri (PSRS/PEERS) attempted to make one of the best teacher retirement systems in the nation look bad.

The system, she wrote, is “only 83.5 percent funded.” Compared to a large number of defined benefit public systems, that is not a bad percentage.

Operating a $27 billion investment system requires the very best people available. Approximately 70 percent of retiree benefits come from investments. The operating budget of $86 million is three-tenths of 1 percent of the assets.

The article may frighten public education employees. However, the systems were constructed through Missouri statutes and are backed by the Missouri Constitution. Both the Missouri Constitution and case law indicate that benefits may not be diminished or impaired. Missouri public school employees, your benefits are safe.

As a former trustee of the Missouri State Employees Retirement System (MOSERS) and the PSRS/PEERS, I believe both systems are professionally and honestly managed and provide reasonable compensation for the employees.

Dick Franklin
Independence

On hate and misplaced priorities

I find it interesting how we are encouraged to hate our opponents.

Chiefs hate Raiders and Broncos, or as they say “There’s no love between them.”

MU and KU.

Royals. Oh well, nobody hates the Royals anymore.

Even politicians put down their opponents during elections. Then they ask us to forget all that hate talk and want us to work together to make things better.

I don’t get it. As I get older, I can’t turn my emotions on and off like that anymore.

Sports is one thing, but politics can have a lasting effect on the nation.

I also find it disturbing that we pay athletes, singers and actors millions and millions of dollars to entertain us, but we argue about teachers’ pay. Entertainment is just that: It serves no purpose but to entertain. Teachers will affect our country’s future.

Which is more important, to be entertained for three or four hours or our children?

Has the world become so stressful that we have to vent our anger and hate through “entertainment” at the cost of our future?

Tom Swope
Kansas City

Teachers union contract

Maintaining a balance of power is vital to the life and effectiveness of large institutions such as the Kansas City Missouri School District. Yet the district administrators apparently are seeking to destroy that balance by unilaterally voiding the contract with the teachers’ union (7/10. Local, “Superintendent search faces two-week delay; Board has questions about selection process, while teachers clamor for a new contract”).

Teachers unions arose in the first place because teachers’ professional and civil rights needed protection from capricious, dictatorial administrators. Do we really want to go back to the dark ages?

If the district imposes a contract on the union, they will wipe out teachers’ rights with one stroke. Cronyism and favoritism will run rampant in a district where lack of trust is endemic.

The result will be a brain drain such as the district has never seen. Over the years, teachers with a vision for students have been outmaneuvered in a variety of ways. This move will trump them all.

Marla Unruh
Kansas City

KC School District budget

Arthur Benson II labeled The Kansas City School District’s $449,000,000 budget a “placeholder” (6/26, Local, “Teachers call for more talks; KC School District contract talks must go on despite threatened deadline, they say”).

Let’s examine that $449,000,000 budget. It breaks down to about $19,000 per student, $112 per school day or $18.70 per school hour — much money spent for little return.

I would change Benson’s description of “placeholder” budget to “screw the taxpayer again” budget.

Perhaps we should send the students to Pembroke Hill and save the taxpayers $4,000 per student.

George J. McLiney Jr.
Kansas City

Commence to applaud teachers

As commencement season winds down, it is time to recognize those weary but happy warriors of the classroom: our teachers. A round of applause, accompanied by a substantial pay raise, would be in order.

The late Kurt Vonnegut offers the best observation I’ve read about this honorable profession in his last collection, Armageddon in Retrospect: “The very best thing you can be in life is a teacher, provided that you are crazy in love with what you teach, and that your classes consist of eighteen students or fewer. Classes of eighteen students or fewer are a family, and feel and act like one.”

Patrons, school boards, and administrators should take special note of that last assertion.

Robert F. Willson Jr.
Emeritus professor of English, UMKC
Leawood

Missouri teachers

The legislature is considering adoption of the low-standard American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) process, in Senate Bill 1066 and House Bill 1911. Every person in Missouri who wants good teachers for our children should oppose these bills.

ABCTE allows anyone who holds any bachelor's degree (no minimum GPA or other criteria) to become certified to teach by passing two tests - one in teaching and one in the content field. This is a low effort, minimal preparation (even in content field) mechanism.

Supporters claim these bills will address teacher shortages but Missouri already has multiple alternative certification entry ways including the Temporary Authorization Certificate (TAC) and Teach for America. These allow people with a degree in the content field which they desire to teach to enter the classroom immediately (if hired) and learn on the job with support.

ABCTE will not help the shortage of highly qualified teachers; it will make it worse. I urge all Missourians to contact your representative and senator today to express opposition to these bills, or any legislation that authorizes ABCTE as a route to teacher certification in Missouri.

Donna M. Gardner
Associate professor and chairwoman
Department of Education
William Jewell College
Liberty