{"id":399516,"date":"2026-07-15T16:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/399516\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T16:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:20:15","slug":"letters-to-the-editor-california-needs-higher-standards-for-teachers-and-stronger-evaluations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/399516\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters to the Editor: California needs higher standards for teachers and stronger evaluations"},"content":{"rendered":"

To the editor: I also hope that strong leadership in education can help the children of California (“California kids still struggle in our schools. Will this change help?,”<\/a> July 13). As a retired teacher with 42 years of experience, this is what I’d like to see:<\/p>\n

High standards for colleges that teach education. It is no secret that a teacher or administrator can earn credits at “colleges” that are basically “pay-and-pass” institutions. This can and does result in a Stanford-educated teacher being told by a poorly educated principal that “reading to kids is a waste of time.”<\/p>\n

High standards for teachers. Strive for a fully credentialed teacher in every classroom. Stop issuing “emergency” credentials<\/a> every time there is a teacher shortage.<\/p>\n

Teacher involvement. Intelligent people want to be empowered on the job. Structure school governance so that teachers have a strong role in decision-making.<\/p>\n

Strive for valid and reliable evaluations of schools and teachers. Schools can definitely be evaluated, but it can’t be done with a cheap test given to all. Consider effective evaluations such as yearly inspections by experienced educators. Annual portfolios of student work can also reveal much about a child’s growth. Tests can be designed to measure each child’s school progress, but these tests would need to be administered by outside parties. Perhaps retired educators could help with evaluations.<\/p>\n

There is much that is wrong with education in California. A lot can be improved with strong leadership and a dose of common sense.<\/p>\n

Linda Mele Johnson, Long Beach<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: I also hope that strong leadership in education can help the children of California (“California…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,160402,49604,160401,63,160403],"class_list":["post-399516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-credentialed-teacher","tag-jason-armond","tag-laurel-street-elementary","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-retired-teacher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}