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Judge rules California has right to fire incompetent teachers

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by YankeeFan, Jun 10, 2014.

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  1. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    The one thing I will say to defend administrators is that they are more likely to be fired by their superintendents (pushed by the publicly elected school board) for telling parents to STFU than they are for meekly acceding to parents' demands.
     
  2. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    I recall my first evaluation as an assistant professor. We were evaluated primarily on the basis of what our students thought of us. The scales ran from "1: Very Poor" to "5: Excellent". My average score was right at a 4, which I foolishly thought was pretty good (especially seeing as how the label was "4: Good"). Turns out I was the lowest performer in the department. Some colleagues had average scores of 4.95, which means that across 130-odd students, only a handful of responses were anything other than 5. Turns out the week of evaluations, my colleagues made it a point to have doughnuts, coffee, pizza, etc., on hand. I, novice that I was, didn't play the game*.

    My department chair -- a total fucking idiot -- ranked us all on how our students evaluated us, and told me flat out that if I was consistently at the bottom (even if being at the bottom meant I averaged 4.75), I'd never make tenure. Swear to God, he said, "Here at XYZ Univ., we expect all our faculty members to be above average."



    *I never did, and I published my way the fuck out of there as quickly as I could.
     
  3. da man

    da man Well-Known Member

    Was he from Lake Wobegon?
     
  4. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    I know, right? I was looking around for the hidden camera ... He didn't say that, did he?
     
  5. Shoeless Joe

    Shoeless Joe Active Member

    Our state uses an evaluation system where you are ranked 1-5 (5 being the top) on various things such as Teacher Content Knowledge, Lesson Planning, Instruction, Environment, Classroom Management, Leadership, Community Involvement, etc. By state directive, a 3 is a "rock solid veteran teacher" and "there is no such thing as a 5."

    I've never gotten a 1 and don't worry about it because I do my job, but I have yet to see how that model is set up for anything other than to bash teachers.
     
  6. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    I'm not sure getting rid of tenure will improve the education of the most disadvantaged. Not unless the best teachers -- who are also fluent in the culture of the poor -- are willing to work in those schools. And not just a few, either.

    Though one gets paid, the job is rather close to missionary work. And it's demoralizing work, too. You're at least as much of a traffic cop in the classroom as you are educator. And if you are great at teaching in those districts, especially in large cities, administrators notice, and they can't wait to whisk you out of it.

    I'm anti-tenure across-the-board. But I doubt this ruling solves much of anything.
     
  7. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I'd love to see a list of what it took for a California school teacher to get canned in those years where there were only 10 dismissals.

    I'm guessing it was some pretty heinous stuff.
     
  8. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    If it makes teachers less complacent, then I'm all for it. We've all had great teachers, ones that made a difference in our lives. We've also all had the teacher who sits and their desk and rarely looks up as the class reads silently from the textbook.

    My high school is consistently ranked among the best public high schools in California and there were a lot of teachers there who did almost nothing and I'm guessing things haven't improved in the last 25 years.
     
  9. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    I'm going to guess part of the reason they did nothing is because they didn't have to -- it was one of the highest rates schools, and it likely had a good portion of the student body with solid home support and/or income.

    At least judging by my kids' teachers, "complacent" is not a word I would use to describe them, even though most of them are tenured (the exception: my son's HS French teacher, only in her second year). They're generally always available, either in their classroom or online. They're not all saints, but I don't get the sense any of them are sitting around waiting for retirement. Part of that is because, in many states, they don't have to wait anymore: there is a huge retirement wave nationwide.

    http://nctaf.org/announcements/nations-schools-facing-largest-teacher-retirement-wave-in-history/

    The link also shows that the rate of teachers leaving the profession early also has gone up significantly over the last 20 years.

    The problem is that a lot of those leaving teaching early are good teachers who burned out quickly.
     
  10. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    Thousands of science teachers in Kansas who believe in evolution and contend the earth is not flat, and orbits the sun, suddenly got nervous.
     
  11. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    My kids are 6 and 8 and each of them has had a teacher who I would classify as "complacent"

    Last year, my oldest and his best friend had different teachers. His friend had a teacher who sent home notes (short, but still...) to the parents daily saying how the day went. They would have a worksheet sent home for homework three times a week and she would send home suggested reading lists and spelling words every week and would have regular correspondence with parents by email.

    My son's teacher didn't send home a single note all year. He never had homework, she never sent home anything, didn't reply to emails, didn't call people back. It was awful. Quite a few parents complained and she retired after last year.

    My youngest's kindergarten teacher has been similar the last semester. She announced at Christmas that shshe would be retiring at the end of the year and then the correspondence stopped. On my youngest's first two report cards he had 20 lines of comments the first quarter, 26 the second and none on the third.
     
  12. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Well, that excuses it then. It was a bunch of rich kids, so why should we teach them anything?
     
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