Legislatures in various states are trying (and in many cases, recently Kansas, succeeding) to eliminate “tenure” for teachers, which means the elimination of due process.
If a student makes a baseless claim against a teacher (“he touched me”) or a parent complains that the teacher discussed evolution or global warming or taught an “offensive” book, the teacher may be fired on the spot, without a hearing in the absence of due process.
Tenure doesn’t mean a lifetime job. It means that the teacher has a right to a hearing before an impartial administrator and must be fired only for cause, not capriciously.
Teachers don’t get due process until they have taught for two, three, or four years, depending on state law. They don’t give themselves due process; it is a decision made by their principal.
Reader Jim explains in a comment on the blog why teacher differ from other public employees:
I don’t care about other public employees. They are not in the same boat I am. I have spent around 75K on MANY education degrees enabling me to be certified to be a teacher. Other public employees spent “$0″ dollars to be enabled to do their job.
I have a significant investment in the property of my teaching license, and I deserve the right to defend myself against arbitrary and capricious discipline and/or termination processes.
Teaching is not like other professions where once you are fired, and a license pulled, you can go get another job. Without the property of a teaching license, I am nothing in the education field (in terms of being a teacher).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Due process is important. During the thirty years that I taught, there were several cases in the district just like Diane describes where students accused teachers of touching them or having sex with them.
The district, in every case, suspended those teachers without pay and the teachers union would not defend them in court, because the union contract in California said in cases of moral issues like sexual misconduct, the union would not step in until the accused was found innocent in court.
In every case where the suspended without pay teacher went to court on their own dime, they won and after they won, the union stepped in demanding back pay from the district and that the district and the family of the child pay the teachers court costs.
Without due process where those teachers had a right to go to court even using their own money without union support, every teacher would fear being a victim of a child’s baseless lies.
In every case, the defense attorneys proved the child was getting even with the teacher for the child earning a bad grade or getting in trouble for something they did in class that the teacher write up on a referral.
Only one of the teachers was extremely fortunate to have this happen in June as school was letting out. His court case reached a verdict before the next school year started and he was back in class. The student was expelled from the district. He was also fortunate that he was out of town with family and friends on the weekends the student claimed they were together having sex. She didn’t know enough about what he was doing out of school to put together a solid accusation. The student eventually broke down in court and admitted she had lied to get even with him for the grade she earned in his class.
Teachers are already the only people in America who can face double jeopardy. If a teacher is found innocent in a court of law, the credentialing commission may still pull their credential and deny them the right to teach. And without going back to court to fight that, there isn’t much that can be done. Fighting for your rights through the courts in the country are expensive and most Americans just can’t afford justice.
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Actually, once you add up all the pros and cons to teach in this country, why would anyone in their right mind want to be a teacher.
Teachers are abused by students, parents, administrators, politicians, a long list of billionaires, etc.
This country doesn’t deserve dedicated teachers.
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Amen Brother Lloyd….and we become more mistreated and abused each day.
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Why teach i in this country? You might as well ask ‘Why maintain a commitment to public education’? You’d best look inward and decentrate, get some distance from your mind-set, from your cynicism and your own sad disappointments based on your limited negative experiences, which have no relevance to the centrality of Due Process protections to providing a framework, for fundamental fairness when key constitutional issues are at risk.
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Say what? How about using English for the masses.
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Figures. Let’s try again: you write from limited experience, then proceed to generalize that experience in order to generate a view of public school teaching that is both cynical and depressing. Read your postings for content and tone. Given your experiences, I wonder why you didn’t leave teaching earlier. Silly me, you had to accumulate sick days and make it to thirty years to max out on your retirement.
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Read my memoir when it comes out. The title is “Crazy is Normal”
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I once had a student who (luckily nothing came of it) claimed “you touched me” in class as we were heading out to a special…the entire class responded to him saying, “SHE DID NOT!!!!” And he said , “Just kidding.” They told him he’d better not ever make that kind of comment again. He was a transfer student in 4th grade.
I only mention this to say that, even as a tenured teacher, I about passed out. Thinking of a student being able to LIE and ruin your life …as a joke…or for any reason, simply scared me to death. He was trying to make a name for himself in a class that actually respected teachers.
Glad to say. On the last day of school, he handed me an apology letter thanking me for puttingu up with him all year. As an aside, this kid came to our conference with his mom and baby sibling. She allowed that 2 year old to dump every math manipulative in the room into the floor …as I proceeded to try to pick them up with no help from the mom. Is it any wonder that this student was a behavior issue?
People have no idea.
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So sorry that happened to you and glad it went nowhere.
Regarding people have no idea, yeah. Parents would be surprised how their kids “out” them at school.
Some stories there…some funny and plenty sad.
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Here’s one that may make your hair want to stand up as if shocked.
We had an incident where a junior girl was caught in the boy’s RR having sex with a boy when classes were in session. I won’t go into detail but we heard all about it in great detail as the story unfolded.
A special ed kid went to the RR and saw the coupling. Without saying a word or going to the RR, he hurried back to his special ed classroom and told the teacher who called campus security. It took three CPO’s to pull the couple apart because they didn’t want to stop.
When the principal called the mother, the mother called him a liar and threatened to sue him and the school district for spreading such lies.
Something similar happened to me without the sex issue. I was grading papers while my 8th grade class was writing the rough draft for an essay. I saw first one girl and then another jump up shocked and then settle back down in her seat. To see what was going on, I had to stand up. One of the boys was crawling along the floor out of my sight biting the girls in the ankles. I sent the kid to the office. The principal sent him back and told me he didn’t want anything to do with it. I called the mother who called me a liar—her perfect son, “who was a real jerk”, would never do anything like that.
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People can be unbelievable.
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And this is because the public school teach everyone’s children—something many of these corporate owned or controlled Charter schools are not doing. A kid has to be severely dysfunctional and a serial disruptor to the educational environment before a public school throws them out and then the law required the parents of that kid to find another public school that will take them. The only option is when kids are caught with illegal drugs on campus and/or weapons—than that is usually automatic expulsion.
But again, those kids either end up in a juvenile prison or the parents must find them another public school within a set time period.
Because we teach everyone’s children, we could have a future Nobel Prize winning scientist sitting in our classroom or a future psychopathic serial killer. The public schools are not responsible for how this children turn out as adults. That decision is usually decided before the child even reaches the age of six.
Almost every serial killer has been linked to child abuse at a very early age.
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We need to see what this ALEC driven legislation is about: making it possible to create an (even) cheaper teaching force, with a side effect of further hindering the functionality of public schools.
The irony is hearing the calls that all kids deserve experienced teachers and even charters saying they can’t hold onto teachers.
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I wish that the general public could realize what ALEC is doing.
Think about it. The union demands (some of which have not been all that great) provided job security, insurance and benefits, and protection; therefore, they provided security. Public jobs had been survivors in this economy. The collapse, which was orchestrated by Wall St hedge fund managers and other corporate manipulators, was harmful to people in professional, non- union jobs. Something “had to be done” to public employees to bring them to their knees. How else but to break the unions? Break their power. Break their self-confidence. Break tenure. Whatever it takes. Shove older more expensive workers out the door. Enter corporations. Seek to level the playing field. How to do so… Testing. Misused testing. Fire teachers. Replace with young people. Pay $30k. Save half the money. Privatize schools where possible. Put the money into the pockets of the privatizers.
ALEC is happy. Koch Brothers are happy. We are sittingvhere , mouths gaping.
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We had those protections in non-union states too. . .until we elected a bunch of ALEC members (and it is being contested in court). You are right. It is ALEC.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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The complete loss of due process argument here is a straw man. No one is advocating the complete loss of due process for teachers, but of course dianeravitch.net is the home of the
The question is why should teachers have significant additional ‘protections’ above other state employees especially if these ‘protections’ harm students and cost the taxpayers money.
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He says it well.
It is hard to believe that the myth of “if there’s a bad teacher, you can’t fire them” still rings in discussion by educated people. It’s mind boggling. And you can’t argue with them.
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I don’t think that they do, actually, Cynthia. And here you are on the blog, so clearly you have some questions yourself. Can you elaborate on the additional ‘protections’ teachers’ have? I’d like to know about them.
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http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2012/edu/teacher-layoffs/teacher-layoffs-032212.aspx
“While there are some similarities, teachers have additional protections that are not provided to other public employee groups.”
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I don’t live in California. I don’t think we have those in NC.
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Wow. The LAO report smells like ALEC. Looking through it, it makes some questionable claims. How does seniority lower the overall quality of schools? Is there proof? Are they saying experience does not matter? How does removing the fact checking first hearing improve education? The goal of the report is stated as streamlining layoffs, not improving all public workers rights or better schools. But I could cherry pick parts from it to support a different slant. But that is California so maybe there is something else going on there.
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During our protests against SB5 in Ohio and immediate reaction against Citizens United it was obvious that some similarities were taking place in other stares, particularly in Wisconsin and Michigan. The Koch Brother connection was made. The Rep Gov Assn was supporting similar legislative language. It was swirling around in several states. ALEC was not identified at first but soon, when many similarities were exposed, we knew. It is ridiculous. But unfortunately I live in the now gerrymandered John Boehner district but not in his wealthy area. They just snaked around the district to grab more rural repubs and avoid the city dems. Kasich and Boehner’s political ads make them sound like saints. They are taking the high road by misrepresenting what they value. Actions speak louder than words.
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Talk about a strawman – why don’t you explain how due process “harms students” and “costs the taxpayers money”?
BTW, just curious, but your first paragraph sort of trails off. Did you think better of yourself before completing that thought?
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Dienne, I don’t know if Cynthia is southern, but in the south trailing off and not finishing can be interpreted to be a loud insult. Sort of a “charmed, I’m sure” type thing. She meant to leave it blank, I feel certain.
Don’t you worry your dedicated, cynical self over it now, ya hear? You have proven your dedication and fearless protection of public schools too much to worry with a petty insult like that. This southern gal says be above it, because in fact I believe you are. (gush gush, sugar sugar now go get some sweet tea and some grits or something and have a nice rock in a rocker on a front porch. . .that’s what I would do).
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Here in corn and rustbelt country, we just say “what the heck….?”
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A 2008 University of Washington study of teacher absences in North Carolina found a significant relationship between increased absenteeism and tenure. Absenteeism is associated with declines in student performance.
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Cynthia, is there a study showing that charter schools do better if they have especially high teacher turnover, year after year?
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Where I taught, each year, teachers earned 10 sick days and if they weren’t used, they accumulated. And if you didn’t use them, they would add into the retirement formula. For that reason, I held on to as many of those sick days as possible.
By the time I retired (after thirty years), I had about 180 (18 years worth) sick days left and had used maybe fifty the last two years due to sick building syndrome because the classrooms had leaky roofs, moldy carpets and were poorly ventilated. One year the district even spray painted the school while class was in session and the fumes were sucked into the rooms causing teachers and kids to vomit and get seriously ill. I had to evacuate my class and take my kids to the library for several days.
In addition, the ground crews cut the grass once a week while class was in session and the workers walked down the outdoor halls with gas powered blowers causing a dust storm. Kids with allergies often had problems breathing and so did teachers. And as we age, our immune systems weren’t what they were when we were younger.
All it took was walking into the empty classroom in the morning and a few minutes later, I’d be wheezing and get a pounding headache. In addition, I came down with several sinus infection every school year—but not during those weeks when school was out.
I haven’t had one sinus infection and haven’t wheezed since I retired in 2005. You couldn’t get me to return to teaching if you even put a gun to my head. I’d just say pull the trigger.
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Ms Ravitch wrote…
“Cynthia, is there a study showing that charter schools do better if they have especially high teacher turnover, year after year?”
That is a non-sequitur. It seems like high turnover would impact any school; charter, private, magnet, or district.
Do you dispute the claim of the study showing a significant relationship between increased absenteeism and tenure, and my claim that teachers get additional protections above other government employees?
And BTW, still waiting to hear if you feel that magnet schools negatively affect community, whether you still support Core Knowledge as a curriculum, and what curricular you believe are content rich and worthy of NPEs endorsement.
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Magnet schools were intended to promote desegregation, not skim the easiest to educate students like charters do. I was a member of the board of CoreKnowledge and left when it was leased to Rupert Murdoch. I approve of its voluntary adoption; I disapprove of its mandatory imposition on schools or districts. No, I do not believe that tenure has any negative impact. Would you abolish it in higher education? If so, you abolish academic freedom. Tenure is due process. I support due process.
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It cost taxpayers more money because experienced teachers expect to be paid more.
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You are misinformed, Cynthia: by losing tenure, one becomes an at-will employee, able to be fired for any, or no, reason at all.
Additionally, depending on the state, due process protections are also enshrined in civil service law, so that other public employees cannot be arbitrarily fired. Those protections are not limited to teachers.
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Correct, Michael.
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Yes. In fact they are dismantling due process. By making teachers “at will” employees, the administration needs no reason to fire a teacher. There are minimal job protections, but even those dealing with age, race, and gender are a shadow of what they once were through legislation and court decisions.
I would turn the question around – why shouldn’t all employees have due process from false accusations and discriminatory business practices?
But it is also true that teachers frequently make difficult, unpopular decisions. Disciplining a student can bring on the underhanded wrath of a troubled, vindictive parent. I once was threatened with a lawsuit, my job, and state prosecution for giving out an A-. The parents were well connected and twisting state law. I know of more than one teacher accused of misconduct by very troubled students. Teachers are dealing with young adults who can be angry and accusing you of horrible things one minute, then break down crying needing emotional support the next.
The lack of due process means teachers walk on eggshells and are no longer able to teach. It puts a boot on their throats. Say one misinterpreted comment, teach the wrong topic, pick the wrong head cheerleader and your teaching career is over. Is that the America you want? That definitely hurts students. Before buying into the false rhetoric of the anti-teacher movement, I’d encourage you to learn the truth.
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Mathvale. . .if you own a restaurant and you walk in while an employee is popping some food in their mouth or taking some cash from the drawer, it would be pretty cumbersome to give them due process. Your restaurant. . .out they go. As it should be.
This is why I like Jim’s post because it does show that working for that license has some privilege. Once you have that privilege, should it then be something that can be frivolously taken away?
I don’t think Jim’s point is that protection is a privilege because of the license. I think he’s saying why have a license to give you the privilege to teach, if it can be so easily disregarded?
And I think he mentions the money he invested only to show it was a large investment on his part. If a hair dresser works hard for her cosmetology license and can be let go just because one person says they don’t like their hair, will anyone want to bother with a cosmetology license?
We should just all be like Alabama and have ridiculous tort damages awarded and just mix the game up even more! That would be fun.
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I disagree. Due process is a very American idea for all workers. It promotes fairness and consideration. People are prone to misunderstandings.
I do not see how a restaurant worker eating food relates to the very different, legitimate situations teachers run into. But take your situation. Certainly you want to be sure an employee is stealing if you are a fair minded owner? Or are you advocating we throw out due process, fairness, and reasonableness for efficiency and expediency? Do you see how due process protects teachers in the course of doing their jobs and not simply misconduct? It is possible even with due process to fire teachers.
No, due process is a fundamental idea of civility and fairness. Let’s not move backward.
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All employees have a right to due process in wrongful terminations called a civil suit, if they are in a protected class. It’s because of the nature of public employment that there is a separate legal system called administrative law, that handles internal personnel matters, including dismissal recommendations.
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Your confusing K-12 with post-secondary education. Teachers don’t have these “protections” because of the nature of their jobs–they have them because they are public employees. Period.
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The question is why punitive accountability applied randomly and abusively to teachers who get paid far less than superintendents and politicians IS NOT applied to these people in school(and state) authority who are also get paid by taxpayers money?
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The oligarchs in the United States will not be satisfied until they have absolute authority, in their sole discretion, to make whatever decisions they wish to make about the lives of others. Want to fire that teacher and replace him or her with your mistress or with your golfing buddy’s idiot son? You should be able to do that. Or so the theory goes, it seems. Even the eunuch’s shadow of real tenure that is left is too much for these people, as Ms. Weiss’s comment shows.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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You seriously believe tenure is related to lower performance? Seriously? I worked in a charter with no protections and no payout for unused sick days. The teachers took all of their sick days because of stress, a lack of respect, and no raises year after year. The teacher protections and benefits actually keep teachers motivated to continue to work. See, the protections actually provide a better education environment. Have you ever taught in both public and charters? The idea that teacher protections lower performance is the biggest bunch of bs.
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One other then to consider. I wasn’t alone in hating being out of class and then cleaning up the mess left by a substitute. For that reason many veteran teachers at the schools where I taught would go to work sick.
Being out of class with a substitute in the room was the same as playing Russian roulette with a pistol. Most of the time we had no say who the sub would be and sometimes there was a shortage and there would be no teacher. On those days, your kids would be herded into a multipurpose room or the library where a CPO/administrator would keep them from killing each other. No teaching would take place.
You never knew what you’d find when you returned to class. The kids enjoyed eating subs alive.
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I find this justification for tenure laws offensive. It implies that workplace protection is contingent on how much one spends to become licensed. Should there be a scale of protections, with doctors at the top because they spend the most on school, then lawyers, and teachers somewhere below that? People who are not in a licensed profession can be fired willy-nilly? Also, this justification is completely self-centered. It is entirely about Reader Jim’s job. I’m a licensed teacher, and I have a graduate degree in education. I didn’t go to school because I wanted a job that I can’t lose. I went to school to be a better teacher. My job security should come from the fact that I work hard and care about kids. Please, take this defense of tenure down. It is insulting. Mr. Lofthouse provides a much better defense of tenure. Put his comment up instead.
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Carlton. . .offensive? really?
Why not just let it be a lead in for discussion. Seriously, I think Dr. Ravitch posts things she knows are provocative. Be cool. . .speak your talking points, but lighten up a little. That’s my two cents. You have the opportunity to work hard and care about kids BECAUSE you are licensed. If you don’t value that, that doesn’t mean you should be offended if someone else does.
I say go Reader Jim go! You make a good point. There might be other good points, but I think his is fine and not insulting at all.
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“I don’t care about other public employees.” Wow. Sorry, I think that is clearly a selfish, offensive comment. “I have a significant investment…and I have the right to defend myself…” The right to defend oneself has absolutely nothing to do with prior investment in school and licensure. By that logic, Ivy League grads are more entitled to jobs and rights than public university grads. Sorry, I find that thinking elitist and offensive, too.
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Correct, all employees should have due process from false accusations and discriminatory business practices. But Jim is saying that loss of a license means end of career. Teachers tend to lose licenses permanently for various reasons without reinstatement. Certainly for serious crimes, that is reasonable. But we’ve had plenty of convicted lawyers and doctors be reinstated. The latest was a perverted flasher lawyer who is back in business. You will find your hard work and dedication is not job security. Only by a formal due process contract are you given fair consideration.
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If you are “dismissed” as a teacher or resign in lieu of a “dismissal,” it doesn’t mean you lose your teaching license. It’s only if you have been convicted of a serious offense, especially involving children, that your license is revoked.
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How, pray tell, does Jim justify saying that other public employees “spend $0” to be able to do their jobs? Many other professions have licensure requirements. Besides that, there is the fact that being fired from a teaching position DOES NOT mean you lose your certificate. Where did this crazy, non-factual idea come from, and why, Diane, did you uncritically repeat it.
There are very good arguments for maintaining tenure and due process rights, but you won’t find them in Jim’s comments.
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You don’t necessarily lose your teaching certificate if you are dismissed, which means you go through a hearing and “lose.” In fact, the vast majority of terminated teachers do not lose their licenses. Teachers are booted out for the dumbest of reasons even if they have “tenure” rights. I still had my license (now expired) from Nevada because I didn’t do one thing wrong that merited even an oral reprimand, let alone a dismissal, let alone license revocation. I was thrown under the bus because a nitwit principal wanted to cover her backside when she didn’t do her job. HR put her up to “investigating” me because I turned in an FMLA form before my illness ran its course.
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“I don’t care about other public employees.” Right there he lost me. The LAST thing teachers should be is selfish and arrogant. You are going to LOSE with the public when you act like that.
There are LOTS of public employees who have college degrees and have invested much in their careers. This guy is no better than any of them.
Due process is a right of ALL PUBLIC EMPLOYEES. It is NOT unique to teachers. Don’t pretend that you have special circumstances of why you have “due process” because you do NOT.
Do I have to keep banging people in the head over this?
I KNOW this process and I do know that it is basically a sham formality if one is targeted for dismissal. Districts rig those hearings for their benefit. Only if you have access to an outside attorney do you even have a prayer in winning these sham tribunals.
This arrogant teacher just blew a gasket with me because he has NO sense at all.
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If you want to have a flavor of what these sham tribunals look like, take a look at the 1939 movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Now Jimmy Stewart isn’t going through a “due process” hearing, but the tribunal is almost identical to what I went through in my “due process” hearing in 2008. When I saw two-faced Claude Rains in that film, I said out loud, “Alyson, is that YOU?” He was as two-faced as that last principal of mine. The forgeries, the perjuries, the whole nine yards. This is typical in school district “due process” hearings.
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Speaking of legal matters in education, check this out:
Duncan Spanks Washington State!
Showing the taste for power that has led Sen. Lamar Alexander to accuse him of thinking he runs a national school board, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today yanked Washington state’s “waiver” from the No Child Left Behind Act. In his letter, Duncan expressed his disappointment in the failure of Washington state’s legislature to heed his instruction “to put in place teacher and principal evaluation and support systems that take into account information on student learning growth based on high-quality college- and career-ready (CCR) State assessments as a significant factor in determining teacher and principal performance levels.” This was the first time Duncan had pulled a state’s waiver. Four thoughts:
One, the incident shows how massively the Obama administration has extended the US Department of Education’s reach. Secretary Duncan is now punishing Washington state and re-imposing provisions of a law that he has termed “broken,” because its legislature failed to heed his mandate governing teacher and principal evaluation—a mandate that has no grounding in statute. Talk about your worrisome precedents.
Two, this decision shows how capricious the whole waiver process has been. Duncan’s letter acknowledges that he extended Washington’s waiver despite it having violated its pledge. It’s hard to understand why it was okay to grant a reprieve last time and not this time.
Three, it’s hard to fathom why anyone would imagine it appropriate or desirable for the Secretary of Education to require states to adopt particular teacher and administrator evaluation policies, especially at this time. Aside from the absence of any legislative basis for his doing so, there is no evidentiary basis he can point to demonstrate the merits of his preferred model. Meanwhile, his actions are fueling backlash. And, he is insisting on linking assessment results to evaluation at the precise time Washington state is adopting new assessments, which seems a recipe for trouble.
Fourth, I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that every one of the 40-odd states with a waiver is in violation of at least some portion of it. So it’s troubling to see the Secretary freely pick and choose which violations are “okay,” which call for probation, and which are so severe he’ll yank a state’s waiver and force them to re-impose provisions of a law he’s termed broken. In this case, his anger seems to be directed at the legislature for having failed to heed his directive. There are at least two huge problems with that. One, in our system of government, executive branch officials are not empowered to give marching orders to duly elected legislators. Two, absent statutory authority, federal officials are not supposed to give marching orders to state officials.
Unfortunately, this has all become strangely routine for a Department that seems increasingly untethered from the inconvenient strictures of statute and unbothered by the niceties of lawmaking.
From AEIdeas.
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Without due process, it will be much easier to fire a teacher that the principal deems
“ineffective.” However, it’s important for teachers to know that they have civil rights, just like everyone else. Let’s take the recent situation in Santa Monica, California:
A teacher was assaulted by a student, who was armed and selling drugs. To protect himself the teacher (a wrestling coach) wrestled the young man (18 years) to the floor and pinned him down until security came. Fortunately, the whole episode was captured on a student’s cell phone. The video went viral.
The superintendent immediately took the side of the student and suspended the teacher. She actually had the nerve to offer sympathy to the student’s parents before she even had the facts. She was prepared to throw this teacher under the bus. However, the teacher was wise enough to exercise his rights as a citizen and CALLED THE POLICE. The police arrested the student and one other and now they are charged with assaulting the teacher (or something like that). The teacher was reinstated and is now back in class.
The community was up in arms over the treatment of this teacher and are calling for the resignation of the superintendent. I wouldn’t be surprised if SHE is the one who loses her job. She deserves it.
Remember, teachers, you do not leave your civil rights at the schoolroom door. If a student makes a false accusation against you, threatens you or assaults you, call the police and/or your attorney. During my 42 years as a teacher, I did it once (threatening parent and unsympathetic principal) and was very pleased with the results.
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I doubt that Cynthia is a teacher. More likely, she is some kind of consultant – a person who isn’t in the classroom, yet feels qualified to tell teachers how to teach. By the way, there is a high degree of STRESS these days in teaching. That may be why so many teachers are taking sick days. I just about have to take a sick day to keep up with my paperwork. I’d do the paperwork during my planning period, but my planning periods are now pre-empted by mandatory meetings. By the way, Diane Ravitch’s post did not evidence a non sequitur. I could easily see the connection. Cynthia was just being argumentative. I doubt that she is a teacher. Just another naysayer.
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I retired 2 years ago. I had been there 18 years. I had 11 years with no absences. Only 1.5 in the first 11 years. Then 1 each when father in law, mother, and mother in law died, 1 day for son’s wedding and 2 days the last year. However, the stress was breaking me down mentally and physically. I had accumulated well over 180 sick days. And I used only 2 or 3 personal days during that time. It is definitely not worth my time to prepare for a sub. It was easier to go in feeling unwell than fool with sub plans. So I did not take advantage in any way. Some do.
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Writing sub plans is often easier than the mess having a sub in the room causes. Often, the day after a sub was in the room was a nightmare that added stress and hours to the day’s work.
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Oh, to live in a country, again, that respects its teachers! The anti-teacher laws and rhetoric simply will not stop.
I read, yesterday, a long piece on Grant Wiggins’s blog in which he discussed what he considers to be a problem with teacher quality in this country. And I was thinking, as I read this, that pre-NCLB, I would have found myself agreeing. There is always room for improvement. I have taught alongside teachers who weren’t very good at their jobs. There are 3 million teachers in the country, and some are going to be incompetent. But Wiggins is writing at a time when teachers are under attack, when they are being made into at-will employees; when they are being subjected to invalid value-added measurements based on invalid tests, often of students they did not themselves teach; when there are high-level plans to reduce the size of the teaching force by replacing teachers with technology, when teachers are being increasingly micromanaged to the point that they have very little autonomy and professional authority, when most teachers have lost the right to strike, when veterans are dropping out at alarming rates, when ALEC is peddling anti-due-process legislation and legislation to remove pay for advanced degrees across the nation–when the professional is DELIBERATELY being deprofessionalized–at a time when teachers are under attack.
All this goes back to the Gates Foundation and its studies purporting to show that “great teachers,” defined as ones whose students’ standardized test scores improve, make the most difference in outcomes and advanced degrees make no difference. And, of course, it relates the extrinsic punishment and reward theory that the Ed Deformers have generally. Test and then either reward or punish.
I believe that great teachers do make a difference. I believe that VAM is invalid numerology and that the standardize tests of reading and writing do not, in fact, validly test reading and writing ability. I know, based on enormous amounts of research from various fields that extrinsic punishment and reward is actually demotivating for cognitive tasks AND that real continuous improvement occurs when line workers are empowered and they are put in charge of continuous improvement. I think it insane to believe that having teachers who have studied less and who know less–teachers who are more ignorant–is desirable. That just seems to me, prima facie, to be absurd, and such an absurd outcome should have people looking at the problems with the measurement instruments that they are using.
I remember a time when teachers had a great deal of autonomy and were held in respect. That time is gone, and Ed Deformers are making the situation much, much worse. Morale among teachers is at an all-time low. They feel micromanaged and disrespected and abused, and they are not going to do their best work under such circumstances, clearly.
When I was a boy, I was taught that one was supposed to respect and honor one’s teachers.
What is with these Ed Deformers? Did they not learn any decency, any manners?
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Hundreds of Los Angeles School District teachers and others (coaches, counselors, etc.) are sitting in Superintendent John Deasey’s “teacher jail” for allegations made by students, parents, or administrators. Deasey is on the record as stating that even if the allegation s not proven, the teacher will not return to the classroom because he “can’t take a chance” on the students’ safety. Careers, marriages, homes, mental health, down the drain. Many more are driven out due to stress, duress, and outright discrimination. Over 90% of these educators are over 40. This is not as much about student safety as it is about saving the district hundreds of million dollars in salaries and the lifetime medical benefits given to retirees. In 2004 a district study concluded that the district would be on the hook for billions in underfunded benefits and salaries. (I’ve seen the study.) This is when the push began to get rid of veteran by any means necessary, It accelerated under Deasey’s predecessor and went into overdrive when Deasey was selected (He was the only candidate considered.). He is pulling down close to $500,00 in salary and benefits (car, driver, etc.). He gets to hobnob with Eli Broad and his ilk doing their bidding while the teachers languish months or years. If the Vergara decision goes against and the current legislation pending is passed and signed by Governor Brown, the only thing that will change is the loss of due process and a speed up in dismissals. I wouldn’t advise my worst enemy to teach in L.A.
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Lack of respect for teachers was always a problem because of pay.
I remember distinctly, during my first year teaching, a class in which some kid asked, “What do we have to study this stuff?”
I gave the stock reply that “You will need to know how to do this in order to make a good living in the future.”
And the kid replied, “Oh yeah, we can learn all this, and then we can get a job like yours and make–what?–about as much as the bag boy at the grocery.”
And the kid was correct that that was just about what I was making. I was coaching the speech team and an assistant drama coach in addition to my full-time teaching duties, and I was putting in about 75 hours a week, and so I was making far less than minimum wage. In the year I left teaching, I more than DOUBLED my salary. Two years later, I had TRIPLED it.
But at least, back then, I could say, “I don’t make a lot of money, but I do important, respected work. I am a highly skilled professional. People look to and depend upon my expertise. I was hired for that, for my knowledge and ability. In my classroom, I have the authority. I decide what we study and when. I choose the novels and other materials. I write the tests and other assessments. I decide upon the learning progression and the pedagogical strategies that I will employ. And I am allowed to do that because people respect what I know how to do.”
No more. The teacher is treated as a low-level, interchangeable deliverer of predetermined scripts, as someone who needs regular trainings (Sit up. Roll over. Good boy.) in delivering those scripts obediently. And god forbid that one get a couple classes one year that don’t perform well or that one doesn’t cave to the continual pressure and stop teaching writing and start teaching InstaWriting for the test, stop teaching literature and start teaching InstaReading for the test, that one remain a teacher and not a deliverer of test prep.
All this is tragic. God forgive these Ed Deformers, for they have no idea how much damage they are doing.
Our schools have long been one of the glories of the world. If you weight the scores by socioeconomic level, the Ed Deformers’ own preferred metric–scores on international standardized tests–show that our students are among the world’s highest achieving. So, on average, our teachers have been doing a great job.
But demoralize and employee, make him or her live in continual fear, reduce him or her in status and self respect, and what you will get will be what you deserve.
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cx: metric . . . shows, of course; other typos in the comment above. My apologies. I wish there were a correction feature on WordPress.
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And ultimately, all this is about raw power. It’s no accident that teaching is being deprofessionalized at the very time that wealth and income inequality have both increased dramatically in this country. The person in charge wants to be royalty now. He or she expect absolute, complete obedience from underlings–not collaboration from colleagues.
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cx: He or she expects
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Well, theoretically the post is correct. In practice, that so-called “due process” may not be anything like the description. I kind of cringe when I read things like this. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the post, and I support tenure. But I’ve seen those due process rights walked all over when it comes to individual teachers.
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As president of an AFT local for 22 years I had cases involving the termination of tenured teachers. In instances where our review of the evidence displayed that the district had just cause, we fulfilled our duty of fair representation by having the teacher resign, or when warranted go on disability retirement. In instances of unfair treatment by administration, we took the case “to the wall”. We always had 4 or 5 teachers per year subject to dismissal who were non-tenured or recently eligible for tenure. We would analyze the teachers’ evaluations, meet with the evaluator and the superintendent to plead the case if we found flaws in the evaluations or to ask for reemployment under an improvement plan monitored by a teacher-mentor . 9 times out of 10 administration would not reconsider, and we ended up advising the teacher to resign….the others were reemployed under an improvement plan for one year only. Now, in Ohio, it takes 7 years for of experience to be eligible for tenure. Given the current state of affairs regarding student performance as part (50%) of an evaluation, I would predict a steady stream of litigation due to the flaws in VAM and the student assessments.
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In Louisiana the civil service laws for government employees are very stringent; however, our governor is against those protections for them as well as the protection we still hold, tenuously, under tenure laws. I think the ALEC 0playbook is not just against teachers but all government employees–at least it is in Louisiana where Jindal is selling the state off one privatization contract after the next.
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