Congratulations to Elia Scettrini on her well-deserved award as
Gilroy Teacher of the Year! For years, Mrs. Scettrini has been
teaching her Advanced Placement Spanish classes at Gilroy High
School to such good effect that 87 percent of her students have
passed the AP Spanish exams. This is 10 percentage points higher
than the national average.
Congratulations to Elia Scettrini on her well-deserved award as Gilroy Teacher of the Year! For years, Mrs. Scettrini has been teaching her Advanced Placement Spanish classes at Gilroy High School to such good effect that 87 percent of her students have passed the AP Spanish exams. This is 10 percentage points higher than the national average.
Some critics belittle Mrs. Scettrini’s accomplishment by saying that, naturally, in Gilroy, with its large portion of the population who speak Spanish as a first language, it’s not surprising that we manage to field quite a few students who can pass the Spanish AP.
May I point out that no one passes either of the Spanish APs by speaking gutter Spanish. The passing students must read and write fluent, grammatical and literate Spanish: no mean feat. Furthermore, almost a third of her passing students earn the top score of 5.
Even though Gilroy has an even larger segment of the population who speak English as their primary language, we do not manage to reach the national average on the English APs. On the contrary, instead of surpassing the national average by 10 percentage points, the percentage of students who pass the English APs runs about 10 percentage points lower than the national average.
So grateful thanks and plaudits to Mrs. Scettrini! Long may she teach! And while awards are very nice, I think we should dig up some merit pay for this woman. She’s a keeper.
n n n
I find that I enjoy my new policy of responding to my detractors only once a quarter. For three solid months, I do not fret over letters to the editor. If I notice one that responds to one of my columns – or, more usually, fails miserably in its attempt to respond to one of my columns– I simply snip it out of the paper, and stow it in a box on a high shelf in my room.
By the time three months goes by, the clippings have faded, as have the issues they reference. I can read them dispassionately.
Harold Williams, in his letter of January 11th, nicely illustrates the follies to which the innumerate are prone. I hate to break it to you, Mr. Williams, but on the day I wrote my column, the Dispatch webpoll reported 78 percent of respondents supported the cheerleaders’ trip to Hawaii. You say 79.29 percent did so. I assume that is what the poll said the day you read it. I won’t accuse you of damn lies or misquotations.
Later Mr. Williams completely misses an obvious correlation between a percentage and a fraction, leaving me to surmise that he cannot change percentages to fractions and back. Pretty sad. I hope he is not a teacher.
Daniel Garcia wrote four letters. Aside from his assertions that he is privy to the innermost thoughts of Mr. Edwin Diaz and sundry Republicans (telepathy?), his most interesting (and ungrammatical) letter demands that The Dispatch get rid of me, and advises me that if I don’t like Gilroy, I should go somewhere else. I wish I were surprised that a self-described liberal would espouse such illiberal sentiments.
Ms. Sharon Stone wrote from Illinois that I am not credible in matters concerning public schools. Ms. Stone’s recipe is leaving it to experts such as herself, plus a dose of unabashed boosterism. Ms. Stone, sometimes it takes an outside consultant to remind a behemoth out-of-control bureaucracy what its central purpose is supposed to be. In the case of schools, that purpose is supposedly education.
Dale Thielges, if you want to read an inspiring, motivational column, try Kat Teraji, page 2 on Thursday. Enjoy.
Finally, although Ms. Sonia Vanya did not address my writings in particular, I must point out that public transit only works well in big, dense cities such as the Paris and London she so admires. America’s large, dense cities, such as San Francisco and New York, have effective public transit. The Bay Area is too large and diffuse to depend on a subway system. And what kind of stereotype are you promulgating with this prattle about Republicans and SUVs? I am a republican. I drive a Corolla.
