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During the last four years I have believed it inappropriate, as superintendent of Berkeley schools, to engage in newspaper debates, so I have refrained from ever responding to letters to the editor. However, because the recent attack by Michael Larrick (Letters, Feb. 25-28) on public education and Berkeley teachers was so ill considered and uninformed, I am compelled to respond. 

In a state where students have to sue the government in order to receive access to books and bathrooms, the disdain that Mr. Larrick shows for teachers and public education is not surprising. Surveys indicate that teachers feel less respected by society as a whole than they do by their students. This lack of respect is manifested in the vulgar belief that anyone can teach, an attitude that in part has helped contribute to the consistently low pay and status for teachers.  

Perhaps the question is, if anyone can teach, why don’t they? One reason is teachers’ salaries. While it is true that California teachers receive the highest salary of all teachers nationwide, California teachers actually place 32nd on the national salary index when adjusted for the cost of living and earn 8.4 percent less than the national average. Lack of a salary increase and the money to support such is the current anguish and conflict in our own District. The governor’s budget proposal robs Berkeley of $1.5 million this year and last.  

In 1998, U.S. teachers ages 22-28 earned an average of $7,894 less per year than other college-educated adults of the same age. From 1994-1998, salaries for master’s degree holders outside teaching increased 32 percent, or $17,505, while the average salary for teachers increased less than $200. In 2002, new teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area earned an average annual salary of $34,580. This works out to be approximately $7,700 less than the state estimates it actually takes to live in the Bay area. 

Contrary to Mr. Larrick’s contention, the “real world” does not send teachers scurrying to classrooms; more teachers leave the profession each year than enter it. With urban, high-poverty schools losing nearly 20 percent of their workforce each year, it should come as no surprise that almost half of all first- and second-year California teachers are unqualified. Yet, this “current crop” of teachers is arguably the most qualified of any to date. It should please our community to know that Berkeley has the highest percentage of fully credential teachers in the County, and the highest number holding a National Board Certification. The standards set by No Child Left Behind require that all teachers be certified and hold a degree in their subject specialty. Such a requirement is laudable, but it would still exclude non-credentialed physicists, like Edward Teller, from teaching in our public schools. Why? Because being an effective teacher requires more than subject matter knowledge. It requires an understanding of learning and pedagogical theories, of lesson plan design and classroom management, of second-language acquisition, of how best to attend to the needs of as many as 200 different students every day, many of whom enter our schools ill-prepared, hungry, and neglected. Do all teachers currently employed in our public schools possess this knowledge? Hardly. But lowering professional standards will not raise the quality of the profession or the quality of our schools. Neither will complaining about the quality while simultaneously cutting financial support for teacher training and staff development programs, which is exactly what initiating vouchers and the Governor’s proposals would do. 

The National Center for Educational statistics and a recent Harris poll of urban teachers supplies these additional facts: 

• Teacher certification and experience have been found to be two of the strongest and most consistent predictors of student achievement. 

• The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that requires a licensure examination in addition to the examinations given by the teacher education institution. 

• More teachers leave private or charter schools than public. 

• Over half (54 percent) of science teachers report that they do not have enough equipment and materials necessary to do science lab work, such as lab stations, lab tools and materials. 

• Nearly a third (32 percent) of teachers report that there are not enough copies of textbooks for all students to take home.  

• Nearly a third (29 percent) of teachers report that they have seen evidence of cockroaches, rats, or mice in their school.  

• Over a third (39 nine percent) of teachers rate their facilities as only fair or poor. 

I am honored to work in a community that has generously demonstrated that it values and supports education by approving several local tax measures. However, after working 34 years in California public schools, I can say without reservation that the decline of state funding for public education has reached its nadir, and local measures cannot sustain Berkeley for long. Moreover, the governor’s new proposals are certain to make matters worse and are, to my mind, morally reprehensible.  

It saddens me that individuals like Mr. Larrick cannot see how their misdirected contempt is helping to dismantle public education as an institution that has been the cornerstone of our democracy.  

Michele Lawrence is superintendent of the Berkeley Unified School District.