Re: "RSD to lay off dozens of teachers today; Veterans claim they are crowded out"

As the retired former principal of Warren Easton Fundamental High School, I read with interest about how veteran teachers in New Orleans are being kicked again to the curb.

On March 31, 2006, the New Orleans Public School System fired all of its employees. Next to Hurricane Katrina, this was the lowest point in my life.

To terminate 70 teachers the week before school starts shows the brutal insensitivity of Recovery School Superintendent Paul Vallas.

Phil Edwards
New Orleans Public Schools (1972-2006)
Helena, Ala.

Re: "Sarah Carr, "Teachers prepare for new year; 'You're doing God's work,' Vallas tells them," The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, August 5, 2009, Metro, p. 1.

Yes, Recovery District Superintendent Paul Vallas' teachers are doing God's work: with mediocre pay and no job security, no rights and no representation in their workplace.

RSD teachers do not know from one year to the next if a neophyte looking to get student loans canceled will replace them, or if a principal will fire them because he takes an arbitrary dislike to them.

Yes, they will need to know God is on their side. The makeover of public schools has devalued teaching experience and the teaching profession.

Teachers have been left with no rights, no voice and no respect.

Linda Jennings
New Orleans