EZ10Miler wrote:
If you want to really improves schools you need to fire 80% of all teachers w/in their first 2 years. (see article)
yes you can fire a tenured teacher but the cost is prohibitive, so most schools just reassign them or make up a job like teaching study hall, dentention monitor, or some crap like that.
http://www.slate.com/id/2258657/pagenum/1
Just curious: How many of you out there would be comfortable with your bosses videotaping you at your desk, then scrutinizing your choices? Why are teachers such the focus of a Big Brother, lynch mob mentality?
Also, many of these premises are based on the false assumption that you truly can measure success from one teacher to the next. Teachers teach different students, with different abilities, with different support systems at home. Who's the better teacher? The one who teaches gifted kids? Or the special ed teacher? How do you measure gains in choir, art, or physical education? ("Mr. Jones, I see you had 30% of your kids obese in August, and now in June you have 34%. FAIL")
If you think the answer is the new "Value-Added" measure, think again. It's like measuring height with rubber bands - you can stretch them in a million ways, getting whatever result matches your purpose. Expecting students to grow evenly, proportionally, and regularly is simply not how it works. A "year's worth of growth" is such an arbitrary thing. It's like slicing an onion sooo thin, you can't even tell it's onion anymore.
Value-Added is a tool used to tear down public education. The wolf dressed in sheep's clothing.
I can guarantee that the group that espouses firing 80% of public school teachers (based on an "effectiveness model" similar to value-added) is massively conservative, in favor of a voucher system, supportive of charter schools, and anti-public schools across the board.
SO yeah, fire 80% of the teachers if you want public education to come crumbling down. Take the pension and tenure away while you're at it. And videotape it all.