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So long as public schools are treated as places that exist to provide guaranteed jobs to members of the teachers' unions, do not be surprised to see American st

So long as public schools are treated as places that exist to provide guaranteed jobs to members of the teachers' unions, do not be surprised to see American students continuing to score lower on international tests than students in countries that spend a lot less per pupil than we do. - Thomas Sowell

germinalphrase 8y ago
What kind of “guaranteed job” are you talking about? As a teacher, I could be let go without cause for my first three years and, subsequently, after two poor performance reviews. Tenure merely requires the district to attempt to coach the teacher before firing them. I’ve seen teachers forced out of the classroom simply because they don’t mesh with the personality of management. Whatever horror stories about rubber rooms come out of NYC are not indicative of the reality on the ground most places.
- zacharytelschow 8y ago
  https://www.the74million.org/article/fact-check-just-how-many-tenured-teachers-are-fired-each-year-anyway-hint-not-many/ https://www.the74million.org/article/fact-check-just-how-man...
  - germinalphrase 8y ago
    “To be clear, these numbers do not answer the fundamental question of whether more teachers should be dismissed. They also don’t include ineffective teachers who leave the profession of their own volition or who are counseled out by administrators without going through the formal dismissal process. And they do not include tenured teachers dismissed for reasons unrelated to performance. Finally, such stats can’t show whether or not the processes for dismissing tenured teachers across the country are overly cumbersome.” Listen, I don’t have a problem with firing teachers. I just don’t think the common perception of “infinite job security” for teachers is accurate. A much larger and more concerning issue - in my opinion - is that we have very poor measures for teacher effectiveness. This is problem in at least two major ways. It inhibits districts from dismissing poorly performing teachers. It likewise prevents teachers from improving their performance because it often isn’t clear what problems might exist in their curriculum and instructional practices. I also believe that if we were able to make teacher designed and administered assessment more universally trustable (as their results are now only [sometimes] trustable within the context of that specific teacher’s coursework) we could start to address some of these problems.
    - zacharytelschow 8y ago
      "Listen, I don’t have a problem with firing teachers. I just don’t think the common perception of “infinite job security” for teachers is accurate. A much larger and more concerning issue - in my opinion - is that we have very poor measures for teacher effectiveness." If bad teachers, by your own admission, are not being fired, teachers have the very job security you claim they lack. If being fired for bad performance is unlikely and schools are much less likely to run out of funding than a company (if run even semi-responsibly), these jobs may not have "infinite job security" but they're as close to that as can reasonably be found. After all, what is job security if not confidence you will not be fired?
      - germinalphrase 8y ago
        I’m saying that past a certain point good/bad performance is less clear than you’re claiming it to be. Elaborate systems have been made measure and quanitfy teacher effectiveness; however, it’s not a solved problem. Obviously problematic teachers do get dismissed. Like I said elsewhere in this discussion, my first three years of teaching I could be fired without cause. After that, I could be dismissed after two poor performance reviews or with cause. You’re arguing that teachers known to be “bad” are being protected from firing. I don’t believe this is true - at least in my experience as a teacher in the Midwest. I’m saying that once you get beyond a certain threshold for quality it becomes very difficult to separate teacher effectiveness from other noise in the process. Because of this, there are some teachers who may be more effective than others (and possibly some who are only marginally effective); however, we can’t accurately identify them or what makes them better/worse.
- SaintGhurka 8y ago
  How long did it take to fire Mark Berndt? His behavior had been flagged for decades but the school couldn't take action. Why did the school district choose to pay him $40,000 to drop his appeal when he finally was fired? Because even a case where a teacher was found to be feeding semen to blindfolded students, the job protections were so strong that that the district knew it was the cheapest and easiest way out to just pay him off. I left California 3 years ago, so maybe this has changed, but at that time there were countless stories about "teacher jails" where Los Angeles would send teachers who should have been fired, but the process is so expensive and fraught with appeals and obstructions that it was cheaper and easier to keep them on the payroll - permanently. They would isolate them so they couldn't have contact with students, but they'd go on paying them to go sit in empty offices - for years. The argument that tenure only adds requirements for coaching sort of whitewashes over the practical challenges presented when a district needs to let a teacher go.
  - germinalphrase 8y ago
    I have no idea about that story, and it’s directly contradictory to my experience teaching in several Midwest states.
    - SaintGhurka 8y ago
      I assumed you were a CA teacher. It is truly a maddening situation there, and I have a feeling most of it is fairly unique to California. Teacher pay varies considerably between districts - some pay six figures while others top out at 65k. The pension benefits largely depend on pay, but usually it's something like 2% of salary for each year of service, which they can collect starting at 62.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > How long did it take to fire Mark Berndt? His behavior had been flagged for decades but the school couldn't take action. Why did the school district choose to pay him $40,000 to drop his appeal when he finally was fired? Because of management negligence (and worse) in dealing with, documenting, and preserving documentation of earlier incidents, including the district at one point systematically destroying records relating to sexual abuse at district schools. The problem was not the rules requiring documented cause for firing, the problem was management repeatedly covering for him and other abusers, including by destroying evidence. Management misconduct doesn't justify giving more arbitrary power to management. Though, of course, that's what management likes to argue for whenever its own misdeeds are at issue.

germinalphrase 8y ago

What kind of “guaranteed job” are you talking about? As a teacher, I could be let go without cause for my first three years and, subsequently, after two poor performance reviews. Tenure merely requires the district to attempt to coach the teacher before firing them. I’ve seen teachers forced out of the classroom simply because they don’t mesh with the personality of management. Whatever horror stories about rubber rooms come out of NYC are not indicative of the reality on the ground most places.

zacharytelschow 8y ago
https://www.the74million.org/article/fact-check-just-how-many-tenured-teachers-are-fired-each-year-anyway-hint-not-many/ https://www.the74million.org/article/fact-check-just-how-man...
- germinalphrase 8y ago
  “To be clear, these numbers do not answer the fundamental question of whether more teachers should be dismissed. They also don’t include ineffective teachers who leave the profession of their own volition or who are counseled out by administrators without going through the formal dismissal process. And they do not include tenured teachers dismissed for reasons unrelated to performance. Finally, such stats can’t show whether or not the processes for dismissing tenured teachers across the country are overly cumbersome.” Listen, I don’t have a problem with firing teachers. I just don’t think the common perception of “infinite job security” for teachers is accurate. A much larger and more concerning issue - in my opinion - is that we have very poor measures for teacher effectiveness. This is problem in at least two major ways. It inhibits districts from dismissing poorly performing teachers. It likewise prevents teachers from improving their performance because it often isn’t clear what problems might exist in their curriculum and instructional practices. I also believe that if we were able to make teacher designed and administered assessment more universally trustable (as their results are now only [sometimes] trustable within the context of that specific teacher’s coursework) we could start to address some of these problems.
  - zacharytelschow 8y ago
    "Listen, I don’t have a problem with firing teachers. I just don’t think the common perception of “infinite job security” for teachers is accurate. A much larger and more concerning issue - in my opinion - is that we have very poor measures for teacher effectiveness." If bad teachers, by your own admission, are not being fired, teachers have the very job security you claim they lack. If being fired for bad performance is unlikely and schools are much less likely to run out of funding than a company (if run even semi-responsibly), these jobs may not have "infinite job security" but they're as close to that as can reasonably be found. After all, what is job security if not confidence you will not be fired?
    - germinalphrase 8y ago
      I’m saying that past a certain point good/bad performance is less clear than you’re claiming it to be. Elaborate systems have been made measure and quanitfy teacher effectiveness; however, it’s not a solved problem. Obviously problematic teachers do get dismissed. Like I said elsewhere in this discussion, my first three years of teaching I could be fired without cause. After that, I could be dismissed after two poor performance reviews or with cause. You’re arguing that teachers known to be “bad” are being protected from firing. I don’t believe this is true - at least in my experience as a teacher in the Midwest. I’m saying that once you get beyond a certain threshold for quality it becomes very difficult to separate teacher effectiveness from other noise in the process. Because of this, there are some teachers who may be more effective than others (and possibly some who are only marginally effective); however, we can’t accurately identify them or what makes them better/worse.
SaintGhurka 8y ago
How long did it take to fire Mark Berndt? His behavior had been flagged for decades but the school couldn't take action. Why did the school district choose to pay him $40,000 to drop his appeal when he finally was fired? Because even a case where a teacher was found to be feeding semen to blindfolded students, the job protections were so strong that that the district knew it was the cheapest and easiest way out to just pay him off. I left California 3 years ago, so maybe this has changed, but at that time there were countless stories about "teacher jails" where Los Angeles would send teachers who should have been fired, but the process is so expensive and fraught with appeals and obstructions that it was cheaper and easier to keep them on the payroll - permanently. They would isolate them so they couldn't have contact with students, but they'd go on paying them to go sit in empty offices - for years. The argument that tenure only adds requirements for coaching sort of whitewashes over the practical challenges presented when a district needs to let a teacher go.
- germinalphrase 8y ago
  I have no idea about that story, and it’s directly contradictory to my experience teaching in several Midwest states.
  - SaintGhurka 8y ago
    I assumed you were a CA teacher. It is truly a maddening situation there, and I have a feeling most of it is fairly unique to California. Teacher pay varies considerably between districts - some pay six figures while others top out at 65k. The pension benefits largely depend on pay, but usually it's something like 2% of salary for each year of service, which they can collect starting at 62.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > How long did it take to fire Mark Berndt? His behavior had been flagged for decades but the school couldn't take action. Why did the school district choose to pay him $40,000 to drop his appeal when he finally was fired? Because of management negligence (and worse) in dealing with, documenting, and preserving documentation of earlier incidents, including the district at one point systematically destroying records relating to sexual abuse at district schools. The problem was not the rules requiring documented cause for firing, the problem was management repeatedly covering for him and other abusers, including by destroying evidence. Management misconduct doesn't justify giving more arbitrary power to management. Though, of course, that's what management likes to argue for whenever its own misdeeds are at issue.