Why is it so difficult to fire under-performing public-school teachers?

What is your measurement for calculating 'under-performing'? This is a serious question.

Are you basing their performance on the standardized test results of their students? Are you basing this on parental feedback? What is the measure and what is your process for dismissal?

tenure, unions, protective administrators, red tape, overall lackluster performance of schools in general, entrenched culture of protection

Teachers have convinced us that there is no possible way to evaluate their performance, so we have no basis to fire any of them.

Clam Evans wrote:

Teachers have convinced us that there is no possible way to evaluate their performance, so we have no basis to fire any of them.

Rather than just post a mindless complaint offer a methodology for the replacement of sub-standard teachers. Please lay out the measurement techniques/criteria and dismissal system.

Thanks.

Here's why:

How do we look into the job effectiveness of teachers? Have their co-workers/friends(all of whom believe that their institution should be above reproach) take a cursory look into any complaints, and then give 'em the old green light to keep on keeping on. Why is this ok? Because we common folk don't understand the intricacies of the job and the pressure involved.

Why can't we get rid of this system and have an independent body tasked with objective evaluation of these situations, right? I mean it's just common sense......

Right?

Oh, by the way - a funny thing happens when you replace the word "teachers" in the first sentence with "police officers".

just another guy wrote:

What is your measurement for calculating 'under-performing'? This is a serious question.

Are you basing their performance on the standardized test results of their students? Are you basing this on parental feedback? What is the measure and what is your process for dismissal?

Could not the exact same questions be posed regarding most employees in most professions? And yet most employees in most professions are not that difficult to fire based upon under-performance

So, the better question is, why do you think that it is reasonable to dismiss the OPs question with such empty rhetorical questions?

Unions are a problem. Union thugs controlling the media, etc. Scott Walker 2016 would be good for the country.

Yes, yes!!!!! ALL public employee unions should be immediately disbanded, oh glorious yes!!!!!!

"How do we look into the job effectiveness of teachers? Have their co-workers/friends(all of whom believe that their institution should be above reproach) take a cursory look into any complaints, and then give 'em the old green light to keep on keeping on. Why is this ok? Because we common folk don't understand the intricacies of the job and the pressure involved."

Try saying CEO instead of teacher in this sentence.

voice of reason wrote:

Yes, yes!!!!! ALL public employee unions should be immediately disbanded, oh glorious yes!!!!!!

At least there's two of us with common sense!

Tenure

I will put up the mirror for you to look at your empty rhetorical question. My question was an honest question. What is your grand plan for measuring the performance of the teaching population. I do believe there should be performance accountability for teachers, I just have a problem with our current methods of 'grading' teachers/schools. I think the administration of the standardized tests has, to a large degree, hindered the teaching process. I am also not a big fan of the overpowering teacher's union. I do think the school should be looked at more as a corporate model and the principal/school board should be able to replace the teachers that, through review, are found to be non-performing. But I think the teacher that doesn't care or put forth effort is more the exception rather than the rule.

Public school teachers as a whole outperform private school teachers, factoring in demographics. So, there is no reason to fire the former.

If you mean some specific individuals, then it can be difficult to fire them, but not to reassign them, and the reason it is difficult to fire them is to protect against capricious, politically motivated decisions by power hungry principals.

Frankly, what we need is to untie the hands of public school teachers so that they can return to creative approaches to teaching that will generate love of learning, not rote multiple choice test-directed study consisting entirely of repetitive soul-killing worksheets, when not engaged in the months of actual testing. And of course the tests are proprietary and hence secret, useless for learning because teachers cannot go over them in class to teach what students missed and parents cannot see them to help their children learn the material.

You're just anti-union. Teachers no better how to teach than anonymous non-teachers on message boards. My experience of the public schools is almost entirely of hard-working, selfless individuals who care deeply about their students, but who are also hamstrung by bad educational pedagogies and state/county guidelines. They are even more hamstrung by parents who sit their kids in front of video screens all the time instead of having them read books.

Those aren't rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions are questions that the questioner presumes to know the answers to and obviously that's not the case here. The OP's question itself is actually pretty empty for the reasons" just another guy" points out. You cannot begin to address any questions about under performance without defining what under performance is.

voice of reason wrote:

Why can't we get rid of this system and have an independent body tasked with objective evaluation of these situations, right? I mean it's just common sense......

Right?

Are you honestly looking for an expansion of the bureaucracy with an independent government agency tasked with teacher evaluation is the answer? Do we stand up one of these bodies for each school, each school district, each county? Why take the power out of the principal as the governing authority for the school. The school board will have supervision of the principal(s). I think an independent body would just further hang up the process and nothing would get done.

Clam Evans wrote:

Teachers have convinced us that there is no possible way to evaluate their performance, so we have no basis to fire any of them.

+1

jjjjj wrote:

You're just anti-union. Teachers no better how to teach than anonymous non-teachers on message boards. My experience of the public schools is almost entirely of hard-working, selfless individuals who care deeply about their students, but who are also hamstrung by bad educational pedagogies and state/county guidelines. They are even more hamstrung by parents who sit their kids in front of video screens all the time instead of having them read books.

+1

If teachers have the authority to create arbitrary tests and measures for those that are the future of our country, then we should be able to enforce scientific and evidence based testing on the teachers themselves.