Many accountable for poor teachers

As a public school teacher for 36 years, I have two observations concerning our underperforming public schools.

When an unqualified teacher joins a school, the faculty is the first to know and resent the impostor. I have had many conversations concerning "who hired that person," and later "why is that person still here?" Bad teachers are hired by a school administrator and often protected by that administrator. I have no problem with firing bad teachers, but also fire the administrator who made that bad hire. Why was the bad teacher granted a teaching certificate? One would thinkuniversities and their education departments also must be exposed for what some would consider fraud.

The other observation is about the business community. During a session of the Beaufort Senior Leadership Program, the leader commented about a Beaufort-area businessman who was approached by Clemson University with an offer to make his employees computer literate at no cost to him. The owner refused because the learning would make his employees "leave or want more money." Businesses still can follow the model set by Bill Gates and import technical workers on H1B visas and pay them receptionist wages, bypassing Americans who have acquired those skills.

William Baker

St. Helena Island