After watching "Waiting for Superman", it is my opinion that part of the problem with our education system is that teachers are granted tenure too soon after their probationary period within a school district. I was incredibly surprised when hearing that it only takes an individual two years before they are granted tenure (I was always under the impression it took at least 10). Which makes me wonder, do administrations around the country and teachers themselves honestly believe that you are able to rate the adequacy and effectiveness of a teacher in a matter of only two years? If school districts were given the power to wait until giving teachers tenure, schools would be able to keep the teachers who are considered "good" and get rid of the teachers who are "bad", but the only problem is teacher unions. Teachers are not going to relinquish their control over the fact that it takes close to no time for them to be able to have security over their jobs for the rest of their lives. It goes against their contract. But then, how is the education system supposed to keep teachers accountable (like in other professions) when we are not able to fire the teachers who are not doing their jobs or doing them poorly. Earlier today in class we talked about revising teacher contracts within teachers unions and improving them to make them better, rather than getting rid of them all together. I personally feel that this would be a way to help our education system.
This article explain the reason why tenure and teacher unions have a negative impact of education because they protect bad teachers.
It describes that 1 out of every 57 lose their license each year, yet only 1 out of every 1000 are fired every year for teacher related performance. In 2003 a poll of 1345 were asked "does tenure mean that a teacher has worked hard and proved themselves to be very good at what they do?" and 58% of the responded not necessarily and 78% of them said that teachers in schools "fail to do a good job and are simply going through the motions."
This shows me that even teachers believe that this is a possible reason as to why our educations system is in such distress. It's also unfortunate that firing a teacher who has tenure costs an obscene amount of money. The average cost of firing a tenured teacher is $163,142. This leads me to understand why there is such a push for charter schools because teachers are held accountable for effectively being able to instruct a classroom.
I think that if teacher unions and administrations of education were able to work more cohesively together we would more easily be able to reform our education system.
As did you, I thought that tenure was only achieved after at least ten years of teaching, while I knew that they did not have to be ten SUCCESSFUL years, I still thought ten years. So, to hear that some have gotten it after only two years sounds outlandish. Tenure protects the bad teachers from being fired which I find to be the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard. Two years is not enough time to see whether a teacher is successful with her students or not and can not possibly allow a teacher to qualify for tenure. If our teachers are held to such high standards as we talked about in the beginning of the year then why are we so willing to protect the bad ones? tenure for unsuccessful teachers just not make any sense to me and I wish a loop hole could be found in the contracts of the unions that protect them.
ReplyDeleteIt all seems to stem back to teacher unions and the idea of nobody wanting to be accountable for their actions. Why would you work hard if you knew that you'd never be fired. It's like having a teacher tell you your going to have a test that isn't going to count, of course you're not going to study for it. If you're not going to have any negative outcome then why would you try?
ReplyDeleteI think I would really like to hear what some positive sides to unions are. We keep hearing about how they are fantastic for teachers and yet we haven't heard WHY they are fantastic for teachers. Sure they protect them, but in what way?