<p>I am saying that if the administrator does their job and documents bad performance teachers can be fired tenure or not. I am saying that the real problem is not tenure but administrators that do not take adequate steps to oversee what the teacher is doing. You can not walk into a teachers classroom twice a year and then say they are a poor teacher. It requires attention and counseling on a consistent basis.</p>
<p>In your organization do poor performers just get fired or are there reviews and performance plans before that happens? Also what is the chain of command for each manager to subordinate they are responsible to grade performance for?</p>
<p>I can’t think of many organizations that employ professionals who enjoy union protection, tom, so I’m not sure if that question really applies. I can say, for instance, that sleeping on the job, similar things, etc. was an instant firing offense. No dragging things out with union lawyers, parking rooms with pay, review boards, you name it… you were simply overdone toast.Now, if you had a personality conflict, picked your nose in a way the boss didn’t like, it would require documentation to send you off. If you shirked, showed your butt, flouted office policy, it wouldn’t take a year, or even until the next downsizing/housecleaning.</p>
<p>While the monetary cost of tenure to the taxpayer might be debatable, that it has to be very high, isn’t:
A stale article (2008) but I’m not aware of any material changes to the subject matter.</p>
<p>We have many issues where people are terminated quickly. Many more where they are suspended without pay immediately.</p>
<p>When you tell me how you can remove the evils of either political party unfairly impacting someone’s job for reasons having nothing to do with performance I will be all ears on why civil service or tenure is not needed.
I have many friends and family that work for private employers and the “politics” there is nothing like what goes on with the real political players at public jobs.</p>
<p>Cat, the material change is that Michelle Rhee turned out to be a liar and a fraud. With little to no experience herself, she pretended to know something about education and teaching. What she knew about was how her bread was buttered. When it comes to teaching, incompetence is in the eye of the beholder, more so than in most professions. The tests designed to add accountability often don’t measure what they claim to and are designed to fill the pockets of companies like Pearson. Friendships, competition, ambition and workplace drama were what I saw protecting incompetent teachers and punishing good ones in the non-union state in which I taught. School administrators are notorious for going after teachers who are a threat to them or dare to question any policy, no matter how small. Parents are notorious for being completely irrational when it comes to righting a perceived slight to their kids. Students are notorious for placing the blame for their failures any place except at their own feet. Working at the whim of the school administration, parents and students does not feel like a safe place and not a place I ever want to be again.</p>
<p>It was the proposal’s estimated breakeven cost of buying out tenure that caught my eye, cartera. Rhee may very well be as bad a person as teachers are good but…</p>
<p>Before you zing me with “why do you think she would be any better at math than she is at anything else?”, why don’t we both commiserate with all the good teachers that can’t do the sums on what the bad ones are costing them?</p>
<p>Given the expense for the current outcomes of public education, do you think that granting public school teachers tenure would be something that could be sold to the public today?</p>
<p>My feeling is that the public can be sold or not sold lots of things based on anecdotal information that distorts the true picture. I also see that many people feel the other guy has a better deal than they do and let envy color their opinion.</p>
<p>As to the expense of tenure fix the process but do not remove the fact that termination needs to be based on documenting the teacher is not doing a satisfactory job.</p>
<p>I’ve never worked a union job, so you won’t be surprised if I say I think the surest fix would be to rip it out whole and start over. From that same stale Time article, the one from back before they decided Rhee was a fake:</p>
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<p>They might have some valid points. Or they could just be repeating lawyer drafted teacher union spin – I can’t really tell.</p>
<p>As I said earlier I am not in a union but I have seen politicians and how they work up close for 30+ years providing employees due process prior to termination in that environment is essential. If the process needs to be structured for quicker resolution do that but do not eliminate the system.</p>
At what point does criticism of what’s widely agreed to be an overly expensive, failing system - and the players involved - cross the line over to “bashing”, sally?</p>
<p>catahoula, I live in a state that has been teacher-bashing for more than two years. They have been called “thugs” and “freeloaders” and other really offensive things, even though we actually have very good schools in my area.</p>
<p>When you say the system is “failing,” can you point out the great successes in private schools? Because if they work so well, they should produce better results against their public-school counterparts in virtually every community, right? Obviously, we all want our kids to get a great education. So why isn’t every family with the ability to do so already enrolling their kids in private schools?</p>
<p>Lots of public schools do a great job. Certainly the ones in my town do. The ones with low test scores face great obstacles and often do a lot with the kids, who come from familiies with many difficulties.</p>
<p>I’m tired of the teacher and public school bashing.</p>
<p>Just a conversational thumb in the door, then? The “bashing” comment? </p>
<p>Paying for private is a choice, for public isn’t, so I don’t see how private schools really relate to the question of why public schools are doing so poorly. Poorly in results, on the whole, nationwide, as evidenced by the ever increasing per student amounts spent on an ever increasing number of poorly prepared kids.</p>
<p>You aren’t answering my question. So I will put it another way. Why would anyone with the resources to pay for private schools put their kids in public schools? Because if they are unilaterally better, people like me, and momfromme, and so many others would already be pulling our kids out if we had the CHOICE to do so.</p>
<p>One could have the kids in the public school system, take the funds one saves by not having to pay for private schools and put them into tutors, EC’s and special ‘resume building’ items. Then when one applies to ‘elite U’ ones kiddle would be evaluated based on other kiddles from the same SES and geographic area…and have the potential to shine due to all the out of system help… That’s what the smart ones in CA do.</p>
<p>No, catahoula, I am saying that in many places public schools are not at all “failing” and that private schools are not necessarily better or even as good. People who already have “choice” (i.e., those with resources to go either way) are choosing to keep their kids in public schools–where I live and in many other cities. </p>
<p>People like you use a broad brush to describe the failings of public education, without actually seeking to understand what is really going on. You imply that private schools are unilaterally “better” without any evidence that they are. And there is plenty of evidence that they come, in many cases, with undesirable aspects of religious indoctrination that many of us feel is an inappropriate use of our tax dollars.</p>
<p>There are a lot of people in Manhattan who choose to put their kids in public schools as a reflection of their personal commitment to the public good and then turn around and contributte large (large!) sums of money to the public schools. I find that beyond admirable. However, it is somewhat controversial since some schools can become so well funded by parents that they can pay for a lot of very nice things that other schools can’t afford.</p>
You’ve got me confused with someone else, with that whole private school thing. The day I’ve said, thought, or even implied privates to be “unilaterally” better has yet to arrive. Like almost all groups, some members are great, some ok, and some suck, sad to say.</p>
<p>You might consider looking at the sheer numbers of functionally illiterate and ignorant graduating from the public system nationwide, sally. Granted, you seem more than happy with your own public, as quite a few of us are, but you and your children do and will have to coexist - and in too many cases support - those that weren’t lucky enough to pass through functional schools.</p>