Posted on 01/26/2012 9:04:23 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
America's public school teachers are seeing their generations-old tenure protections weakened as states seek flexibility to fire teachers who aren't performing. A few states have essentially nullified tenure protections altogether, according to an analysis being released Wednesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.
The changes are occurring as states replace virtually automatic "satisfactory" teacher evaluations with those linked to teacher performance and base teacher layoffs on performance instead of seniority. Politically powerful teachers unions are fighting back, arguing the changes lower morale, deny teachers due process, and unfairly target older teachers.
Teachers in Wisconsin have historically been granted what amounts to tenure as long as they are renewed by their districts after a three-year probationary teaching period.
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Wisconsin Teacher Tenure Ping
If you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list, just FReep Mail me.
I never understood tenure in the first place. What makes teaching so much different from any other at-will kind of employment that they require a guaranteed job after passing some arbitrary point of employment?
A friend went to see a teacher intending to eventually file a complaint. The first thing the teacher said “Just to let you know, I have tenure”.
The unions are spending hundreds of millions from everywhere in that state to get rid of the changes and governor.
The union thus is working AGAINST the better interests of the vast majority of the membership
That’s because you don’t know how political education is. Take as an example, the cause of the “football” wars that were so common in small Texas school districts. A head coach would become unpopular because he was not winning or maybe because he didn’t play the son of a school board member. The board would go to war between the coach’s supporters and defenders. A new election would decide the issue, and so the board got ride of the coach and his assistants, and to boot, any teacher who had crossed some member of the board. To wit” you vote to get rid of the coach and I will vote to get rid of teacher X, whom you hate, or because you want your friend Y to have that job. Spoils system pure and simple. Tenure started as a civil service protection that gave friendless teachers some protection against the boards. It becomes absurd, of course, where teachers are all covered by union contracts. But in a right to life state, it leaves teachers open to corrupt deals by local factions. Under state law, a teacher is utterly defenseless. And if reduce them to the level of Bob Cratchett, you are going to get what you pay for.
the only downside being it will create a surge in welfare cases, because the worst teachers are absolutely unemployable in any other occupation.
A purge of bad teachers is not going to solve the problems of the public schools. Large numbers of bad teachers are a symptom of bad educational systems, just as bad discipline is a sign of a corrupt military.
Teacher accountability?!? What a barbaric notion...I love it!
Happens now with tenure. My wife is a conservative, and gets heat for it. She will never get to teach the “good” classes, and always gets the lower level classes.
It is easy to game the system, and drive out those you don’t like.
Principals play this game with businessmen: “ If I could hire and fire at will as you do, then I would have a much better school.” Never mind that he just wants to get rid of people who resist him. Persuading people is beyond him.
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