This is in response to editorial writer, Paul Weingarten's "Grading Teachers" (Editorial, March 3).
"Grading Teachers" poses problems not unlike those related to the No Child Left Behind bandwagon. It pleads for teacher evaluation programs in New York and Los Angeles, which are viewed as solutions to extremely complex problems related ultimately to the hiring and firing of teachers and even the closing of schools. There are significant reasons why we have had no answers over two hundred years of schooling, other than to use standardized test scores from year to the next year -- and then only in reading and math. No Child...resulted in 50 states developing their own tests, which led to cheating by teachers, principals and state boards of education. A reform disaster, expensive and unimaginative, when bombed, only the test publishers continued to support it. Only the teachers and principals realized early that the numerous variables involved in evaluating a teacher were not beginning to be considered...