« Advice For Black Nerds |
Main
| Fallows On Crichton »
14 Nov 2008 08:15 am
Dissents Of The Day
A reader writes: Knocking teacher tenure is easy but simplistic. There would be some specific gains from eliminating tenure -- getting rid of (or re-motivating) some deadwood. But you're ignoring the real systematic costs. Tenure is a form of compensation: it gives teachers job security and some degree of classroom autonomy. If you already think that teaching is not attracting enough quality candidates, why would you propose cutting compensation? If you really believe in market economics, you have to grapple with the likely effects of making the job even less attractive than it already is.
There are also reasons why tenure should be attractive to anyone who is
suspicious of big, centralized government. As far as I can see, tenure
-- to the extent that it promotes classroom autonomy for teachers -- is
one of the few things cutting against the movement to turn our schools
into federally- directed test-prep centers. The relentless pressure to
focus on short-term test-score improvement, even if it gives kids an
impoverished understanding of what learning is and why they should ever
want to pursue it, is killing my daughters' school. If tenure helps a
few teachers resist that pressure, then more power to it.
Another reader adds:
I have to disagree with you on your position on tenure.
It isn't that the tenure system is by any means perfect, but it is a
fallacy to lay the problems of schools at the feet of that alone.
I will concede that there are a ton of teachers that I work with
daily that have no business being teachers, but what people tend to
forget is that teachers aren't hired with tenure. Teachers
have to earn tenure through the merit you are claiming they should
have; we are scrutinized for three years before it is given to us. So
if your taxes are going to a crummy school full of bad teachers, then
why is it the union get all the blame and not the administrators who
grant unqualified or incompetent teachers tenure? It is the obligation
of the union to go to bat for any member, certainly, but administrators
can give a series of honest, forthright evaluations that lead to
termination before the fourth year. Administrators made the judgment to
keep these people and have more far-reaching effect on the collective
culture and goals of a school. Busting unions does not eliminate this
fact. If an administrator won't eliminate a poor teacher when they can, how does giving them the opportunity to eliminate them when they normally can't suddenly solve the problem?
As much as I am loathe to admit it, teachers are the worker bees
in the grand scheme of things. You just as you wouldn't blame the
soldiers for lack of discipline over his or her commanding officers, it
might be worth looking into taking a look at how administrators manage
and evaluate their staff.
Yet another:
The reality is that teachers are not dealing with
adults or numbers on a spreadsheet or some sort of product. They are
dealing with children, children with different levels of ability and
different backgrounds that place varying degrees on educational
success. It's herculean to separate what the class is capable of vs.
the influence of the teacher.
Not only that, it's counter-productive to children in order to do so.
In the name of "accountability" teachers have been forced to "teach to
the test" and have cut Art, Civics, and other subjects that are
important in giving future citizens the depth of knowledge that they
need to be well-rounded individuals. "Accountability" hurts the
students.
My folks were upper-middling as educators - certainly
not exemplary, but not terrible either. They enjoyed the job - though
they frequently complained about their useless unions - but retired
three years early recently due to the declining state of America's
children. Both have agreed that in the last decade, their classes had
become less manageable, ruder, less interested in education, and more
grueling to work with at both the elementary and high-school level. The
unions have nothing to do with that, and "busting" them won't make kids
any more likely to succeed. It will simply expose teachers even further
to the whims of unreasonable parents, fickle school boards, and
poorly-implemented curriculum. Not get rid of the tiny minority of
"dreadful" teachers that you seem to think are responsible for the
decay of inner city schools.
One more:
Your demonization of teachers’ unions as a
whole is off base. I live in the South, a decidedly non-unionized region, and
my wife was a public school teacher. Yes, teachers’ unions are problematic.
They make it very hard for new teachers to get jobs and make it too easy for
terrible teachers to stay in their jobs. However, eliminating unions doesn’t
really address the problem of accountability. The dirty little secret with
public education in non-unionized areas is that terrible teachers stay in their
jobs too, albeit with less pay and worse benefits. There are too few teachers
available for all the schools with openings, so, although many administrations
are quite capable of identifying bad teachers, they don’t have options
for replacing them (ironically, their way of punishing them is often by removing
them from advanced and honors classes, thus putting students who need the best
instruction with the worst teachers). Yes, this may be even worse in unionized
areas because they limit the available positions for new teachers who could possibly
do a much better job, and yes, my wife has met teachers who came South because
there were very few openings as a result of union agreements.
However, the unions help make sure teachers do not get taken
advantage of. Teachers in the South never get paid overtime, even though they
lose their planning periods (these are not breaks; these are times when
teachers are supposed to be able to grade papers, plan for their classes, or
catch up on other administrative tasks), are routinely asked to stay after
school past “contract hours” (usually 3:30 or 4pm in most schools)
for meetings, or are often “heartily encouraged” (ie required) to
attend a certain number of student events during the course of the year. Teachers
often lose their lunches for at least one week out of the month to either supervise
the children at lunch or meet with parents. None of these things are written in
to the contract per se, but administrators get to make requests of teachers
under an “other duties requested by the school” clause in their
contracts. Thus, administrators in non-unionized areas suffer from a lack of
accountability, resulting in burned-out teachers.
Teaching is a service occupation, and any teacher who is
good at and takes pride in his or her job must work outside “contract
hours.” It is impossible to grade papers, even during planning hours, for
five to six classes worth of children and prepared for the next class and
contact parents of troubled students and do lunch duty. Papers get taken home,
and teachers are not officially compensated for that time. Unions often help to
make sure they are taken advantage of just a little bit less.
I completely agree with you that what is lacking in
education is accountability, but simply suggesting that “busting”
unions will fix that problem ignores that only comprehensive accountability, including
students, parents, teachers, administrators, and superintendents, will really
fix the problem.
Share This
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c45669e2010535ed1881970b
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'Dissents Of The Day'
|
|
Site Meter 
