You say we should keep the best well, ending seniority will end this.
Let's suppose the Principal's neighbor has a child who just got certified to teach. He wants to give this young person a job and as luck would have it, there is a spot available. Budget cuts mean that the school will lose teachers in the next year and someone must be let go. Mr. T has been at the school a year longer than this young person and has been doing a good job, but someone must go and Mr. T and the principal have no personal relationship. Guess who goes? Don't you dolt's know that your job is not safe if seniority ends? Don't you care? Do you really think being a friend of an administrator is the best way to choose a teacher? I can guarantee that is what will happen if we give up seniority protection.
Everyone needs job protection. Leaving this to a principal who is often barely qualified to tie his own shoes is not a good idea.
7 comments:
"Everyone needs job protection." Not incompetent people. Not lazy people. Not people who are not willing to learn and use the technology required of them. I have colleagues of that type. One who is just ...tired and never pushes himself. One who uses word searches in a high school. They have years of experience yes, but are those years turning into outcome?
I do not equate senority with ability. That is the crux of the matter. Only stupid principals will fire effectiveness.
I do not know about your state, my school just went through a rif a year back. The criteria was a combination of your field (shortage?), your degree, how many fields you had and how long you had been teaching.
this is probably the reason why and how the 22 year old, (JUST OUT OF COLLEGE) got her job when the previous teacher retired.
so this 22 year old can get a job because she knew someone and what about the the thousands of excessed teachers who have no classroom?
And the union including the district leader knows this and are they trying to fight it? NO!
The dolts don't care because they have no intention of being in a classroom for more than a few years. E4E and their ilk want jobs with Gates and friends, and this is the surest path there.
Mrs. Widget--even the ones you consider incompetent deserve protection against vindictive, incompetent principals. I have a colleague who spent two and a half years in a rubber room on some trumped up charge. He was just released--found innocent. Job protection is is not the same as keeping someone who is not doing their job.
Teachers (competent, tenured, probationary) would not be the scapegoat and need protection if it was not for vindictive and incompetent principals who DO NOT do their job.
I admit that there are concerns in urban city school systems that need to be fixed. I think the ed deformers as well as most people in this country are missing the point that a well run school deserves to be run by a competent, organized principal with good intent and professional values.
If a teacher is found to be incompetent by a principal, then its the principal's discretion to take care of the situation in the most professional and uproot way.
However, going after teachers to isolate them and set them up failure is inappropriate by any means. No teacher (regardless of competency, age, experience) needs to be subjected to 'arbitrary and capricious conduct' and make them feel in fear of their lives.
I think we need to clarify that job protection does not mean job for life. It only means due process. But no matter how many times people bring up this distinction, those like the first commenter still make the same error (although I think they do it on purpose).
Ideally, principals would make decisions based on teacher performance and not personal feelings. And it's only when you have seen the latter that you can fully understand why LIFO is so important to experienced teachers. In my school, we got a new administrator who referred to the teachers as "dinosaurs." For the past 6 years she has done nothing but polarize the staff, and make things difficult for those "dinosaurs." If getting rid of experienced teachers were not so subjective, I would agree with it. But I KNOW, due to budget cuts and personality friction, many teachers will be given pink slips despite their effectiveness in the classroom.
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