Posted on 10/03/2006 5:35:30 PM PDT by neverdem
October 2006
Joel Klein led the Justice Department's attack on Microsoft for its alleged efforts to monopolize the software market. But Microsoft is a hotbed of competition compared to the organization Klein runs now. Klein is chancellor of New York City's public school system, a monopoly so heavily regulated that sometimes it's unable to fire even dangerous teachers.
The series of steps a principal must take to dismiss an instructor is Byzantine. "It's almost impossible," Klein complains.
The rules were well-intended. The union was worried that principals would play favorites, hiring friends and family members while firing good teachers. If public education were subject to the competition of the free market, those bureaucratic rules would be unnecessary, because parents would hold a bad principal accountable by sending their kids to a different school the next year. But government schools never go out of business, and parents' ability to change schools is sharply curtailed. So the education monopoly adopts paralyzing rules instead.
The regulations are so onerous that principals rarely even try to fire a teacher. Most just put the bad ones in pretend-work jobs, or sucker another school into taking them. (They call that the "dance of the lemons.") The city payrolls include hundreds of teachers who have been deemed incompetent, violent, or guilty of sexual misconduct. Since the schools are afraid to let them teach, they put them in so-called "rubber rooms" instead. There they read magazines, play cards, and chat, at a cost to New York taxpayers of $20 million a year.
Once, Klein reports, the school system discovered that a teacher was sending sexual e-mails to a 16-year-old student. "This was the most unbelievable case to me," he says, "because the e-mail was there, he admitted to it. It was so thoroughly offensive." Even with the teacher's confession, it took six years of expensive litigation before the school could fire him. He didn't teach during those six years, but he still got paid—more than $350,000 total.
What did it take to finally get rid of him? What does it take to get rid of any teacher whose offenses are so egregious that administrators are willing to tackle the red tape? Read on.
How To Fire An Incompetent Teacher, an epic spelunk through the New York school system. [PDF]
Adapted from Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know is Wrong (Hyperion), by John Stossel. Copyright 2006. Reprinted with permission.
Have a Bible planted on the teacher's desk?
BTTT!
I agree with labette; wearing a WWJD bracelet to class would get them fired so fast it wouldn't even be funny.
Beat me to it!
Teachers and other Government employees are the last of the bullet proof Unions. The results of that speaks for themselves.
Get rid of the NEA?
Give a two week lesson where students pretend they are Christians. They take Christian names, memorize passages from the Bible, recite Christian prayers, give up something for Lent, receive a pretend communion. To learn about Christianity, of course.
Road-Warrior Bloomberg Next Heads to Boston
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Tell me again why we need government schools?
bump
UCLA management professor William Ouchi points out that the Catholic schools in New York City have a central office staff of 22. The public schools have 10 times as many students, which should translate into a central office staff of 220, Ouchi says, but the actual number is 25,500.
Tell me again why we need government schools?
A)Because everything hinges on an educated population.
B)Because at one time they taught common values and were the moral fulcrum of a community
C)Because they provide an excellent education in those communities that can afford them
D)Because they are an important factor in determining property values.
Or, to summarize:
Because some people benefit from government schools far beyond their personal out-of-pocket cost.
Once, Klein reports, the school system discovered that a teacher was sending sexual e-mails to a 16-year-old student. "This was the most unbelievable case to me," he says, "because the e-mail was there, he admitted to it. It was so thoroughly offensive." Even with the teacher's confession, it took six years of expensive litigation before the school could fire him. He didn't teach during those six years, but he still got paid—more than $350,000 total.
Cheers!
Thanks for the tip on William Ouchi. I'll keep my ears open for anything from/on the guy.
Is that metric from his book "Making Schools Work"?
Here's some links for the forum I found with a quick google:
http://www.reason.com/0604/fe.ls.the.shtml
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/events.taf?function=detail&ID=117&cat=Forums
"Cheers" was my line!
And the teacher was just exercising his civil liberties ...
If you think it's tough to fire a teacher, try firing a sanitation worker.
Remembering this I did a google search an came up with the info I posted from this USAToday article. It's near the end.
Thanks for the link to the USA Today article. Looks really good.
-
Well, then...
Great minds think alike, and so do ours. :-)
Cheers!
District Administrators are no better, and some of them deserve to be fired too.
whatdya wanna bet that most of the incompetents were HIRED that way??? it's not usually an acquired skill...
Careful!
Next thing you know- the damg Congress Critters will want to create their own UNION!
(Instead of the NEA they will call it the MSM...)
Jesus! There are only 40,000 cops in NYPD!! 25,500 HQ weenies in NY's failed schools?!? That's twice the size of the 101st Airborne Division!
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Thanks for the ping!
All of them are making bucks on the new curriculum provided by America's Choice, a nice quasi Euro Socialist outfit that sells its wares to any school district it can bamboozle. Its doctrine is flim flam feel good Euro Socialist crap. Oh and one of Clinton's cabinet dwarfs, Robert Reich has been a major honcho for this outfit for years.
As far as Stossel, he's made a living being a gadfly and I truly respect his triumph over stuttering, but when he makes good on his promise to teach a month in a tough city school I'll listen to what he has to say.
First you have to find a cannon large enough to fit the teacher into... ;^)
I tought in a maximum security prison for a couple of years, would that count? ;)
Because some people benefit from government schools far beyond their personal out-of-pocket cost
That used to be the case. Now, with very few exceptions, it's a get-what-you-pay-for world. Education is expensive. Not everyone or every community can afford it, a fact that is causing quite a bit of confusion and will in time may re-define the country.
well, I could go on...
You probably shouldn't. Citing the inverse really isn't logic. It's not even an argument in most cases. In fact, it's the kind of thing that will earn you a swirly if you tried it on a high school debate team.
I agree but did you see the 20/20 episode stupid in America? He showed like a 6 page drop down on how to fire a NYC teacher. The unions have ruined education just like they have with everything else.
Catholic Schools were subsidized by the local dioceses
and many are being shut down. In NYC they've shut down more than thirty.
For comparison, look at the cost of a decent prep school or the cost in an upscale neighborhood where better than 90% go on to college.
Its ridiculous for teachers to disregard the opinions of anyone other than someone who has taught in the classroom in regard to the subject of education. And, I say that as someone who used to be a public school teacher.
I'm not a teacher, but I've known a few teachers over the years. Their are many education experts whose opinions they value -- and most have not taught in the classroom.
The problem with public schools, as far as I can see is three fold:
A)On the bottom level of the spectrum, they have been asked to take on non-traditional roles, i.e. social work. They are also encountering many, many kids with varying degrees of brain damage from prenatal drug ingestion.
B)In the middle range, many communities can no longer provide a quality education. They simply can't afford it. The taxpayers are tapped out.
C)At the upper end of the scale, public schools are being asked to provide a first rate education and launch students into realistic competition for the Ivies. This is hugely expensive, so you get property taxes exceeding $25,000 or even $30,000 -- basically the same amount as a first tier prep school. Needless to say, these communities are sucking all the good teachers out of the bottom and middle tiers with high salaries.
"The unions have ruined education just like they have with everything else."
Unions are a big part of the problem, but not the entire problem. Tenure is also a big problem, as is lousy parenting.
Nobody's shutting them down because they're under-performing when compared to public schools.
They're being shut down because the dioceses no longer wants to foot the bill and the families can't afford to pay for the whole thing.
Their are many education experts
Their = there
Of course! Spend more money. Why didn't I think of that...
For the vast majority of people there isn't any more money to spend. Those with money gladly spend $30,000 a year for private schools or in property taxes and scream like banshees on meth if the SAT score averages drop a half point. However, that's not the reality for most people. The reality for the majority of school disticts is that the residents are tapped out.
There are plenty of great Catholic schools across the country that are doing quite well. There are also a great number of private schools that are not connected to the Catholic system that do well, too...on much less money than their public school counterparts.
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