The Chicago Teachers Union reacts to the Vergara decision in California. Here is the key quote:
“If we really want to improve public education, let’s provide all children the financial and social resources that children in David Welch’s home of Atherton, CA, the most expensive zip code in the US, have. Then we need to let teachers, the real experts in curriculum and instruction, do their work without fear that they could lose their jobs at any time for any reason.”
CTU Statement on California Tenure Decision
It must be nice to be a wealthy tech mogul like David Welch. When you want to “prove” a theory, you just go get someone else’s kids to be the guinea pigs. When you want to “prove” a theory, you conveniently omit the most relevant and direct causes of harm. Such was the case in this week’s California lawsuit decision against tenure for teachers. Fortunately, our Constitution and legal system have clear protections for speech and structured processes for appeal so that we non-billionaires have an opportunity to air the facts.
Teacher laws vary from state to state, and so the ruling in California is not automatically a blueprint for changes in states like Illinois. Despite a recent law that makes tenure much more difficult to acquire in Illinois, the myth that tenure equals a permanent job persists. In fact, teacher tenure is not a guarantee of lifetime employment. Tenure provides protection from capricious dismissal and a process for improving unsatisfactory practice, but as in any job, teachers can be dismissed for serious misconduct. Further, as we have seen in California and Illinois, persistent budget “crises” stemming from insufficient revenue generation have decimated the teaching profession.
Contrary to popular belief, the school boards routinely dismiss teachers. Deep budget cuts have savaged the teaching corps, either through probationary teacher non-renewals or tenured teacher lay-offs. Fully half of all teachers leave the profession within their first five years, either because of the difficulty of the work or job insecurity. And for those who do stay, lay-offs are a constant threat, even to the most highly decorated, talented, and dedicated teachers. One Chicago Public School teacher was laid-off three times in a little more than a year. A holder of National Board Certification, the highest certification a teacher can have, he left the profession because of the tumult, and his students at multiple South Side high schools lost out on the opportunity to work with a highly qualified and dedicated public servant. Far from “obtaining and retaining permanent employment”, in the words of Judge Rolf Treu, tenure provided my colleague with no long-term job protection.
Judge Treu also misinterpreted the real causes of discrimination against low-income students of color. Teacher tenure does not cause low student achievement. Rather, the root causes of differences in student performance have to do with structural differences in schools. Omitted from his decision are the impacts of concentrated poverty, intense segregation, skeletal budgets, and so-called “disruptive innovation” that have been at the heart of urban school districts for decades. Scripted curricula, overuse and misuse of standardized testing, school closures and school turnarounds, and the calculated deprivation of resources are the real reasons low-income students of color face discrimination. So-called reformers like David Welch and Arne Duncan push those policies. In other words, the new “reform” status quo has made worse the problem it purports to fix.
If we really want to improve public education, let’s provide all children the financial and social resources that children in David Welch’s home of Atherton, CA, the most expensive zip code in the US, have. Then we need to let teachers, the real experts in curriculum and instruction, do their work without fear that they could lose their jobs at any time for any reason.
I too agree that it takes a new teacher at least 3 years to learn the ins and outs. Although you could identify a good teacher right away, unforeseen problems could develop like major discipline problems that forces a teacher to learn so many new skillsets. Many districts are now leaning towards 5 years which may be a bit too long. But when you couple that in with TFA and their few weeks of training and being immediately granted highly effective status, this decision stinks on so many levels.
Again, this is why I advocate for PAR since it has been proven successful of ridding schools of ineffective teachers whether they are tenured or not, and whether they have 2, 10 or 20 years in the system. But it also affords these teachers due process. Take the good teacher who is going through a medical crisis, or even a personal crisis, that is going to effect their teaching. A committee will recognizes this and give that teacher an extra year of staff development, or perhaps that teacher needs a leave of absence, or more assistance with the class, but that teacher won’t be fired. Or a teacher that has potential, but needs additional tweaking. That teacher will be provided extra mentoring. PAR doesn’t use test scores to measure a teacher’s effectiveness. Under PAR all due process rights are still in place along with all other rights including seniority. If LIFO is taken away, watch how many excellent teachers due to retire within a few short years are suddenly fired or face working conditions that are unbearable just so the district can save money and not pay out a full pension. I do not trust this political climate that clearly hates teachers to save the job of a great, experienced teacher because the bottom line will always trump common sense . Remember pensions are also being targeted as well.
Atherton, the most expensive zip code in the U.S. Sure, but how do the Vergara plaintiff’s rate it? This is a bad neighborhood, nothing fun to do here. Just a bunch uberwealthy perched in their mcmansions.
It didn’t inspire me.
I wish that we had more union leaders like Karen Lewis!
I couldn’t agree more
During my thirty years teaching in California’s public schools, I witnessed teachers being let go every year due to budget cuts, reductions in attendance and pressure on those teachers who were considered incompetent and this was done without using due process.
The trick administration used was to make life miserable for incompetent teachers and one way to do that was assign them to five difference classrooms spread all over the campus sometimes teaching several subjects they knew nothing about and had never taught before.
When that didn’t work for one very incompetent French teacher, the district assigned her to three classrooms at one high school (where I taught) before lunch and two classrooms at the other high school after lunch and the drive from one high school to the other one took almost all of the lunch period. Since French is not tested, they left her in that subject area. Incompetent teachers are often removed from teaching subjects that are tested.
In fact, just in case that didn’t work, the district started the due process procedure, which can take a year or two to walk through the steps.
But that incompetent French teacher eventually left the profession before the due process steps were completed, and no one missed her. We all knew she had to go, but it wasn’t the job of other teachers to get rid of her. Even if we were willing to take on that job, we didn’t have the time, because we were consumed by our work as teachers.
Getting rid of grossly incompetent teachers belongs to administration and no one stood up to defend that French teacher (she was not French just in case you might be thinking that). The local union didn’t even do it after she went to them asking for help, and the other teachers would only listen politely to her complaints as we all waited for her to go (although I suspect a few of the more outspoken teachers probably told her in confidence and not publicly that teaching wasn’t a good fit for her).
You might ask why the local union chapter didn’t protect her job. The answer is simple. The locals are run by classroom teachers from the same district and those teachers know who the really incompetent teachers are and the state or national unions will not step in unless the locals asks them to. The local chapters are the engine of the state and national teacher unions. When the locals decide that Common Core is a threat, they will force the state and nationals to shift to a war footing. I think the Vergara case may be the straw that broke the elephant’s back. This summer may lead to a national awakening as teachers free up time and start catching up on what’s been going on.
The experiences you describe are a bit disturbing.
What part do you find disturbing? All of it or just some of it. For us who were there surviving each day to teach again, we didn’t give it much thought. It was just the way it was.
Teaching is a very isolated job where we close that classroom door and lock out the rest of the world.
And after fighting the daily uphill battle against the ravages of poverty, we were often mentally and physically tired, but then we had to correct the work that was turned in and plan new lessons. That often went into the night at home. When you teach in schools like this, you don’t have a lot of free time to kick back and watch Dancing with the Stars. I missed a lot of TV during those years. For instance, I had no idea about China Beach, a very realistic TV series about the war in Vietnam. I’m watching it now on DVDs.
We didn’t have much time to think about what administration was doing to deal with the incompetent teachers. There was not many of them because most left the first year or two without much urging. the tough kids we faced each day were the first line of defense against incompetent teachers.
If you read my book, “Crazy is Normal” (out as an e-book in a few days—the paperback will come later), you will enter my classroom and spend a year with the kids I worked with from the lowest to the highest literacy levels. You will get inside my head. The year that the book covers was 1994-95 when I kept a detailed daily journal from before the first day to the last. The first thing I did when I got home each day was write that day’s entry using my desktop. Then I ate and started correcting the work I brought home—often while I ate.
To be honest, if I hadn’t served in the U.S.Marines and fought in Vietnam, I don’t think I would have lasted those thirty years. By going into teaching in an area plagued by the ravages of poverty and street gangs, I traded the combat zone in Vietnam for the combat zone of a classroom where many of the kids I taught lived in poverty and/or belonged to violent street gangs.
The idea that incompetent teachers are assigned to subject they know nothing about or that are located in different schools as a way to pressure them to quit in case a multi-year termination procedure doesn’t work.
I’m aware of this happening two or three times during the thirty years I was a teacher. I knew the French teacher—-not closely—-and one English teacher who had been burned out for a long time. The old veterans all said that the one English teacher started out good but in a few years, the pressure changed him so he stopped being a good teacher and gave parents, administrators and kids what they wanted—nothing but As and Bs and let them decide what to do in class. His classroom become a lesson in libertarianism in action.
Later, as part of the French teacher’s improvement plan, she was sent to my room one period a day to observe and get help from me to learn how to manage the behavior of her students. She then told me all her troubles with the district. That’s when I learned they had her teaching in both high schools and five different classrooms, and how frustrated she was that the union wouldn’t help her.
It’s routine. Just because principals didn’t fire a lot of teachers in the past doesn’t mean they COULDN’T. That’s one reason why Vergara is a load of b.s.
Administrators have a whole arsenal of ways to get rid of teachers they don’t like to avoid the hearings. However, I seriously question Lloyd’s little story because unless he was in the classroom, how does he even know that teacher was “incompetent.” What constitutes it anyway?
I left a comment (I think it’s in this thread) explaining how we knew she was incompetent. And she was incompetent. its not my “little story”. It’s a fact and explains why the local union chapter refused to offer this one French teacher legal support to keep her job as administration was turning on the heat for her to leave on her own.
Since everyone closes their doors how did you know this teacher was incompetent? How did you judge the teacher if you weren’t in the classroom? How did it help the kids in the long run to play games with a staff member. What you described is disgusting.
Exactly. If YOU are “competent,” you don’t stick you nose in other people’s business. You are supposed to be doing your job.
How did we know?
From students we knew and taught and respected who had her class too. They told us about her. In fact, we always learned about the few teachers who were burned out or incompetent from students we trusted and respected.
For instance, the band teacher who exploded and threw one of the music stands across the room at one of her gang banger students who wouldn’t shut up. She retired that same year. She’d taught long enough to qualify for retirement. Before the end of the day, the other kids in that one period had spread the word to everyone else on campus—teachers, custodians, students. Sometimes, it would be the custodian coming into my room after school to clean up who would ask if I’d heard the latest news from the student grapevine or office gossip.
In this French teacher’s case, because French is an elective, she only taught kids who were mostly in AP or honors courses and eventually some of the best students in the school signed a petition and took it to the principal. From there, the office staff made sure to spread the news to the rest of the staff. The rumor mill works overtime all the time from the district office to the classroom teacher but it’s wise to take everything you hear with a pinch of salt because the gossip often revises as it travels down to us in the classroom.
You see, each school is a community unto itself. We don’t teach in total isolation because we have students we work with and many of these kids like to talk. Jeeze, as a new class floods the room, kids would be talking about things that happened as they went by my desk on the way to their desk. Or one kid would stop and say, “Did you hear about …”
And when you’ve taught in the same community and schools for decades, you become part of that community even if you don’t live there. You end up teaching kids of former students as I did near the end. You really feel your age when a new kid walks into your ninth grade English class and tells you his/her parents had you for English when you taught eighth grade at one of the intermediate schools that fed the high school.
Who was “incompetent”? The teachers who are too old, the ones who used FMLA, the teachers who don’t kiss butt, the teachers who cost too much money.
“Incompetence” is purely in the eye of the beheader.
Very few teachers who work in the schools are “incompetent.” Many who really ARE generally keep their jobs and become principals.
It’s all about the political connections.
LOL.
Wow, you sure got that right. I saw the same thing. Most of the incompetent teachers all went into administration to escape the classroom and the kids. Then the next thing you know, they are telling the rest of us what to do and doubling the misery and pressure in the classroom.
And you are right too that most of the teachers are not incompetent. Incompetent teachers don’t survive long. The kids see to that. The kids are like hungry vampires at a feeding frenzy who could drain an elephant of blood in seconds. There are kids who will sense the weakness in an incompetent teacher and make their life unbearable in the classroom. We had one who quit his first day at lunch.
But for some reason, there were always a few who managed like the one history teacher who was also a football coach who the kids called Mr. Hollywood becasue all he did was show films that covered the history he was supposed to teach. Films are a great pacifier for an incompetent teacher. That doesn’t mean showing films makes a teacher incompetent but the smarter teacher who burned out and became noneffective learns quickly that one road to surviving to retirement age is through film.
In all, of the hundred teachers at the high school where I taught. there were less than five who were burned out and/or bordered on incompetence and the false theory that these few would ruin a kids life is wrong. Kids who don’t learn manage to do that on their own without the help of an incompetent or burned out teacher.
I taught our daughter when she was in third grade that a weak teacher was no excuse not to learn. It was her responsibility to learn and the teacher’s job to teach and poor teaching was no excuse for her not to learn.
Once a kid knows they can use the excuse that a teacher is incompetent or boring not to learn, then that child will stop learning.
Our daughter didn’t have that lame excuse and she graduated from high school as a scholar athlete with a 4.65 GPA and graduates from Stanford this coming Sunday.
““Incompetence” is purely in the eye of the beheader.”
Another quip for quip of the year!
TAGO!
I still didn’t hear exactly how she was incompetent. Did you gossip with students a lot about other teachers.
No, I didn’t gossip with students, and I also didn’t solicit that information from them. But I listened when they shared these stories.
They came to me as my students or the friends of my students with these stories that were usually collaborated by office staff and other teachers who were closer to the alleged incompetent teacher in question.
This one French teacher eventually caved under the pressure of teaching in five different classroom in two different schools, so there was never a hearing to see if she could be found incompetent and fired, but some of the stories kids told about her sure painted the picture that she was incompetent even in the subject she was teaching.
For instance, there was the foreign exchange student from Germany who took her French class for an easy A. He already spoke and wrote French fluently. And eventually, he bought a small lap sized white board to write corrections for her mistakes that appeared on the board and when her back was turned, he would hold up the correction for the other kids to see.
You may ask how I got this detailed information so I’ll tell you. I was the journalism adviser for the high school newspaper with one period of journalism (always my last class of the day), and that class was mostly AP and honors students grades nine to twelve, and my room was often busy at lunch and after school with these students and their friends. Some days started soon after six in the morning and went to ten at night when we had to leave because the alarms were being turned on.
I was also the adviser for the environmental hiking club (we went into the local mountains around LA for monthly Saturday hikes, and I was co-adviser for the campus chess club. My room was a hub for high school gossip from students and intellectual discussions of all sorts took place and also some lighthearted silliness. Bright, curious students who are highly literate are also talkative and ask questions–lots of questions. But if I thought a question was inappropriate I would say so and refuse to answer it.
I also taught ninth grade English to four sections but I never heard and of this from any of those students. The kids in my English classes weren’t interested in French. I didn’t teach honors or AP English.
Hello. “…get someone else’s kids to be the guinea pigs.” That should be the catch phrase for American Charter Schools.
What really puzzles me is that, according to one article I read, the guinea pigs, er, plaintiffs (students) in the case could not show that they had been harmed in any way by poor teaching. They commented on how bad teachers supposedly were at the school but never presented evidence of what they were supposedly suing about. So I’m wondering how the case was ever brought to trial. What was their standing to bring a lawsuit? Don’t you have to HAVE a case before you sue someone? I don’t get it, unless plutocrats now have unlimited access to courts the same way the do to politicians. The kids in this case were just fronts for his goals.