Letters to the Editor: Public education is collapsing. Look in a mirror for people to blame

To the editor: It’s bad enough there’s a newsletter called “Leaving Teaching.” (“A record number of teachers are leaving the job. Here’s why I’m one of them,” Opinion, Nov. 12)

In an age when homelessness makes or breaks mayoral candidates and fentanyl is taking roughly 75,000 lives a year (double the total from car crashes), and at a time when MAGA World brays for an end to the U.S. Department of Education and federal funding for local school districts, it can be difficult to hear that what’s desperately needed is a Marshall Plan for public education.

California alone has a teacher deficit of around 15,000. The pay scale, the hours, the lack of flexibility and accommodations for special needs, the ossified administrations, and the Sisyphean task of classroom management for a teacher working alone add up to a slowly, but visibly, disappearing workforce that is the backbone of any enlightened society.

And when the system finally collapses, we’ll be crawling all over each other looking for someone to blame, when holding up a mirror will do just fine.

Mitch Paradise, Los Angeles

The writer was a substitute teacher in the L.A. Unified School District for 24 years.

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To the editor: I don’t blame teachers for leaving their profession.

Not only are they underpaid and under-appreciated, they are now not able to truly teach history. Books are banned in some places.

We are on our way to be a dumbed-down society. How many people are aware that there was a time when it was against the law to teach a Black person to read?

College-educated people are now derided as “elitist.” They don’t want people to be taught to think. The uneducated are easier to rule.

Lorraine Knopf, Santa Monica

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To the editor: Through all the mind-numbing muck of the election and the aftermath, there comes a piece like this. The article by former English teacher Lauren Quinn, about the teaching profession being structurally unaccommodating of parenting, is an eye-opener and sheds light on a very real issue.

I come from a family of teachers. I have seen my single mother put in hours and hours into her work, sometimes at the expense of my needs.

Teaching is the noblest of professions, and I cannot believe that we would treat the heroes who shape the future of our society like this. This is gender bias, suppression, exploitation and unfair labor practices all rolled into one.

And yet, teachers selflessly craft and mold our children.

In my culture we have a saying: God and my teacher are in front of me, and I shall throw myself at the feet of my teacher because they made this moment possible.

Utkarshini Kheror, Los Angeles