Teacher

A snowplow driver and newspaper deliveryman who wanted to "get a girl" and his wife allegedly lured a Vermont teacher from her home under the guise of needing help, then strangled her and weighted her body with cinderblocks before tossing it into a river, police say. The murder of the popular prep school teacher, Melissa Jenkins, 33, who was a single mother to a 2-year-old, has stunned the small Vermont town of St. Johnsbury, about 70 miles south...

NEWTOWN, Conn -- Daniel Barden wanted to be a fireman like his father's cousins in New York City, whom he idolized. So it was only fitting that at Wednesday's funeral for Barden, one of the young victims in the Sandy Hook massacre, dozens of firefighters joined the crowd of mourners. The New York firefighters were clad in dress blue uniforms, many with white gloves, at the Wednesday morning at funeral services for 7-year-old Daniel. PHOTOS:  Mourning after the massacre Twenty children and six adults were killed Friday morning when a gunman, identified by police as Adam Lanza, invaded Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Are there commies in your classroom at the University of California? A study by a conservative group shouts: You betcha! How can you and your children protect themselves from academic Bolshevism? ALSO: Photo gallery: Ted Rall cartoons Cal State's fat cats profit while students suffer Raising taxes the best remedy for California's economy?

Re "Teacher quality tied to scores," Jan. 9 Leave it to The Times to highlight one part of a three-year study to support its view that "value added" is a good way to evaluate teachers. The study, by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, found that classroom observations, student surveys, professional development and test scores used together gave a more reliable rating than any measure by itself. To have The Times' headline emphasize value-added is misleading. The study found that many factors were necessary to consider when evaluating teachers, which is exactly the stand taken by teachers groups.

SACRAMENTO -- The California State Teachers' Retirement System, the second-biggest public pension fund in the nation, reported a return on investments of 13.5% for the just-ended calendar year. The $158-billion fund, known as CalSTRS, said it missed an overall target of 15.4% in asset growth. But it posted strong results of 16% for U.S. stocks, 17.2% for international equities, 14.6% for private equity, 6.1% for bonds and 13.5% for real estate. CalSTRS' returns were in line with last month's report of 13.3% growth during 2012 at its larger sibling, the California Public Employees' Retirement System.

The very qualities that teacher George Shirley, counselor Pamela Bernhard and teacher Pat Egan learned to admire in the Latino students--loyalty, perseverance, respect (and, I add, love)--may have worked against the students if they placed their trust in school staff who consciously or unconsciously didn't believe in them. It is much harder to go against another person's low opinion of you when you like and respect them than when you're indifferent to them or dislike them. We've all heard of the successful adult who says, "I owe it all to that so and so teacher--he told me I'd never amount to anything!"

Re "Ex-Sitcom Writer Turned Teacher Brings Act to Class," March 19. Kudos to Carri Karuhn for her superb piece. I speak from experience. Back in Brooklyn at Samuel J. Tilden High School, I was very fortunate to have as one of my teachers a very gifted comedian, Sam Levinson. Levinson, very talented and extremely funny, appeared regularly on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and made many appearances in the Catskill Mountains. But most important, he was an extremely effective, well-liked and excellent teacher.