A four-word plan to fix America’s public schools
A California judge recently ruled that the state’s tenure, dismissal, and layoff rules for public-school teachers lead to “grossly ineffective teachers” being retained in the classroom, producing instruction so inadequate for poor and minority students as to be considered unconstitutional. Los Angeles County judge Rolf M. Treu’s ruling surely will be contested, and it is an open question how constitutional equal-protection clauses should be applied to school-personnel issues. But the ruling does raise important questions regarding the role that the firing of teachers should play in improving public education.
It’s been 30 years since the landmark report “A Nation at Risk” highlighted the dire state of America’s public schools. Since that time, education has undergone a series of supposed reforms, including massively increased spending, smaller classrooms, and higher pay for teachers with accreditation or master’s degrees. The number of students is barely greater today than it was in 1983, but there’s been a 57 percent increase in the number of school employees and a 40 percent rise in real per-employee compensation. The list of smaller-scale reforms would cover pages.
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9 comments:
Got to get the Union out of the way... But it would go a long way towards correcting the problem in America.
imagine that. lazy ineffective teachers! No wonder Obama ended up in the white house!
We may all have had a bite from this apple,even though it wasn't always about schoolteachers.When you fire someone and hire someone else in his or her place,you run the risk of hiring someone even less competent than the person you fired.
anonymous 9:29, PLEASE do tell me what business you own or what company you work for so I know to NEVER do business with you.
What a lame A$$ excuse obviously from a Liberal who should be wearing a helmet and riding the short bus.
9:29 really... and what Union do you work for or where do you teach?
Do you think 9:29 is Dr. Freddy?
Every school district has the ability to hire and retain good teachers. Likewise they all have procedures to discharge 'bad' teachers.
Administrators and boards often choose not to follow cumbersome steps to document and discharge bad teachers, in spite of the fact that much of the cumbersomeness is due to language in agreements they made with teacher unions.
Like it or not, unions exist, in large part, to advance the interests of their members, including income security. Income security includes not being fired for arbitrary reasons if you're doing your job.
Everyone is entitled to attend school; ability and motivation to learn are not solely under teacher control.
Hire smarter. Administer better. Don't grant tenure to questionable teachers; extend their review period until they are effective or let them go if they don't improve after you've documented where the shortfall is.
Bear in mind that firing anyone from any job is a form of economic capital punishment.
One firm I managed for looked on any discharge as a mutual failure; we were not successful in transmitting our expectations to the employee and they were unsuccessful in adopting them. We'd do some review before and after a discharge to look at where we'd fallen short or could improve. Was a good group to work with.
The education issue has many factors and there is no magical answer. All parties involved share some blame and all must improve in order for overall results to improve.
Talk to some teachers and get familiar with what they must contend with in the way of students, parents, resources, bosses, employers.
How will you gentlemen know who to avoid if you know not who I am? That tightly knit same way of thinking concept has destroyed our education system.Remove the blinders so you can also see to your left and right & be open to new ideas.And let me guess,you have no idea whatsoever of what I'm talking about.That's just as well,because you have zero intention of changing.
"But is teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic really more complicated than making software, or automobiles, or anything else in the modern economy?"
Obviously this person has no idea about education what so ever. If you are a teacher that cares, a teacher that wants their student to master the content, then YES... Much, much more complicated, because there is the human to human element.
They slung a lot of data around, and while I agree, there are teachers that should be fired, never once was mentioned the decline of parental involvement.
You want teachers to be successful? Get involved!
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