Letter: Just who is the problem?

I graduated from the UC system with honors and Phi Beta Kappa; I am a 10-year veteran teacher certified to teach Spanish, with CLAD certification, and hours of additional training. I teach at a "failing" school. The governor suggests I should make less money than my colleagues at flourishing schools. If my school does not improve rapidly I should be "expelled." Then why should I keep teaching here? Why shouldn't I take my credentials and move to an easier district or profession?

My school is not challenged by ineffective teaching. It is challenged by cumbersome, unfunded state and federal mandates created by people who appear never to have visited a classroom.

I protest the suggestion that teachers, who every year are asked to take less and do more, are the problem. A staffer claimed the governor showed strength by "standing up to the teachers' union." He showed cowardice in the face of a system that is badly in need of financial and emotional support.

Edith J. Kelly

San Francisco