Letter to the Editor

A couple of weeks back, a mountain lion cub was killed by police in a local town. The paper has been ablaze with outraged letters to the editor over the incident. Lisa shook her head in wonder about the lack of letters regarding the layoffs... she said I should write one... so I did:

A society is judged by the priorities it sets.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I've read what seems to have been dozens of letters written by people outraged by the killing of the mountain lion cub in Santa Paula. And yet, with potentially 700 pink slips ready go out to Ventura County teachers, the number of letters I've read on this loss can be counted on one hand (if that one hand was Mickey Mouse's three-fingered paw).

Where's the outage?

While I do deplore the loss of life of this innocent and cute fifteen pounder--a cub with so much to live for, so much to look forward to in his feline life--and my sympathy goes out the family of the bereaved, who I'm sure would be lighting vigil candles (if they knew what a vigil was or had opposable thumbs), I deplore the loss of our county's teachers more.

Seven hundred teachers. Think about that.

I am a former teacher. I taught English for 10 years at Oxnard and Hueneme High Schools. Twelve years ago, I took a one-year leave of absence to "recharge my batteries." Within six months, I was making more doing web development than I did after a decade of teaching.

I missed the kids. I missed the classroom. I missed TEACHING. But I was also a parent with fiscal responsibilities. I was seduced by the almighty dollar. And I have not taught since.

I'm an old guy now, with a son at Bard School, and recently I've attended two meetings of the Hueneme School District's governing board, meetings that have focused on the upcoming layoffs. I looked out over the standing room only crowds on those evenings, and I saw many young faces, faces of bright and dynamic and qualified teachers who will be out of a job as early as June. Old guys like me aren't getting the layoff notices; it's the young ones, the ones with truly so much to give.

My fear is that even if we get budget funds reinstated in the future (a dubious proposition at best), we will lose these teachers forever. The average career of a new teacher is between five and seven years. If we lose these young teachers, it will be effectively losing out on an entire generation of educators. To lose these teachers would be to lose an irreplaceable resource.

At a time when we need teachers more than ever--a time when our children need to be taught subject matter concepts, NOT how to take a standardized test so that the schools and districts can avoid federal and state sanctions (but that's another letter, another time)--at this moment in time, you can think of this loss of teachers as the paving of the road to ruin--our students' ruin, our county's ruin, our country's ruin.

The people of Ventura County SHOULD be outraged about the loss they see. But they should be outraged at the loss of seven hundred teachers, not a single mountain lion cub.

Yes, a society is judged by the priorities it sets. Take a look in the mirror, judge yourself, then do what's right, people.

Not sure if it will be published... but at least someone wrote one.

[not a bad piece of writing if I do say so myself... not bad for 45 minutes (though I did cannibalize part of my not-given speech to the Board from last week)]