Teachers angrily hit back last night at a Government backbencher?s claims that they are failing the Island?s public school students.

Michael Charles, general secretary of Bermuda Union of Teachers, described former minister Renee Webb?s comments in the House of Assembly as ?abhorrent? and ?outlandish?.

He was backed by the union?s president, Lisa Trott, who said it was wrong to lay the burden of blame for Bermuda?s public education ?crisis? solely on teachers.

Ms Webb told the House on Monday that Bermuda had too many mediocre teachers and argued that teachers? salaries should be based on performance.

She claimed it was teachers, in the main, who should be held accountable for the fact that 45 percent of students in the public school system fail to graduate.

Mr. Charles said: ?To blame teachers for everything that goes on in the school system is, I think, abhorrent.

?It?s easy to lay blame but you know the teachers don?t decide what?s being taught in schools. The Minister (of Education) does. The Minister is in charge of that.?

He asked what Ms Webb meant by performance. ?That kind of rhetoric, really I don?t want to dignify with a response,? he said.

?When people start talking like that, the argument really gets out of whack.

?Whose performance? When you talk about performance that?s a very nebulous thing. If you want to compare our performance with the private schools, then let?s compare them.

?Then the private schools will have to take the students that we take. You are comparing apples and oranges. We have to accept everyone. Private schools don?t. We can?t discriminate who comes through our doors.?

Mr. Charles said there were mediocre teachers in the system, like in any other profession.

?But to say that teachers are the problem and just make a general statement, we totally disagree. We have a problem in society here.

?Maybe Ms Webb knows something we don?t know and would like to share that with the rest of the community, instead of making outlandish statements.?

Mrs. Trott, however, said she welcomed the fact that members of the House were ?finally standing up and saying that the education system is in crisis?.

?I think up until this point there has been a major cover-up in education,? she said.

But she argued that the graduation rate was not only to do with teachers, but with wider problems in society including drug abuse, housing and poor parenting.

?I wholeheartedly agree that as a country we can?t survive when we are not graduating 45 percent of our students,? she said.

?The graduation rates are abysmal and depressing. My main concern with what she says is with regard to when she talks about basing teachers? salaries on performance.

?If we were solely responsible for what the students come to us with, then I think we could be held accountable for the outcome that we get.

?But we can?t control the fact that kids come to us hungry or from a home where one or two parents are addicted to drugs or houses where three to four families are living together.

?If we can?t control the input, you can?t hold us singularly responsible for the output.?

She claimed Bermuda?s education system was ?top-heavy? with high-salaried officers in the Ministry of Education and that their wages could be better spent in schools.

?I?m not saying that teachers have no responsibility,? she said. ?But we are a piece of the pie. If we are doing some things wrong we are certainly willing to sit down and talk about it.?

Education Minister Terry Lister delivering his Budget brief on education to the House on Monday, admitted the graduation rates where ?not where we want them to be?.