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CAT Tracks for September 20, 2009
SENIORITY IS DEAD |
Well, the "bugaboo" of seniority would be dead if Columnist Julia Steiny had her way!
Don't even know if I can mutter the nicey-nice "We shall agree to disagree" line on this column.
On the other hand, Julia Steiny is so out of touch, so "over the top", I can't even work up a good rant...
Take off the rose-colored glasses, Julia! The "ideals" you propose in your column just don't play in the real world.
You don't like out-dated unions (an understatement!) You believe that school administrators should be unregulated...allowed to make unfettered hiring and transfer decisions...that they know best. Unbiased, well-intentioned administrators will make the benevolent decisions that will insure that the best teacher possible is placed in front of that classroom full of sweet, innocent children with their unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
Geez, Julia!
You probably think there's too much regulation of Wall Street...
Julia...
Behind every "bad teacher" stands a bad administrator!
You say the unions won't allow schools to get rid of the "bad teacher"...
QUESTION: Who put the "bad teacher" on tenure...who allowed this person to stay at the school for the five years that are required before one is put on tenure??? A follow-up question...if this person was a "good teacher" for those years, who allowed this person to "turn bad"???
I don't believe for a second that teachers mark their calendars and when that joyous day arrives exclaims..."Whoopee, I'm on tenure...I don't have to work anymore!"
Julia, you and your kind lay a heavy burden on teachers...that THEY are responsible for inspiring those entrusted to them...that children don't fail, teachers do.
Well, why doesn't that hold for administrators?
Maybe if we would adopt a philosophy that teachers don't fail, administrators do...well, maybe administrators would put down their coffee cups, climb out of their padded chairs, and visit the classrooms...find out what the hell is going on!
Tenured teachers CAN be fired...most administrators are just too lazy to do the paperwork. Administrators can't see "bad teachers/teaching" from the comfort of the office.
It's so much easier...
The above is NOT an exaggeration...it is typical of all too many administrators.
If Julia gets her way, every classroom will have an inexperienced (cheap), butt-kisser (Yes, Massa, Sir...whatever you say, Massa, Sir) in charge.
No...I don't think that's what Julia wants, but it's what will happen...IN THE REAL WORLD.
Julia is simply without a clue...
From The Providence Journal...
Education Watch:
‘Bumping’ is the bugaboo of school reform efforts
“Bumping” is a scourge on Rhode Island’s education landscape.
In a particularly dramatic case in 2007, 14 of the 18 elementary teachers at Times{+2} Academy were “bumped” by more senior teachers that other Providence schools no longer needed. The frustrated, infuriated Times{+2} administrators were forced to start all over again, essentially building a brand new school. Soon after, the excellent headmaster threw up his hands and took a better job.
Every time teachers are no longer needed, because of program changes or drops in enrollment, bumping descends like locusts and wipes out years of work building school teams and professional cultures.
Bumping is a leftover from factory-labor contracts. Traditional labor management was based on seniority, without reference to merit, because either a worker could handle a die press or not. When factory workers shift positions, the functioning of the assembly line doesn’t change.
Schools aren’t at all like that. Bumping is seriously disruptive. In truth, bumping serves no one who works with the kids, least of all good teachers, who would dearly love to be hired and respected on the basis of their merit.
Bumping fatally mixes two issues that should be very separate. On the one hand schools need to hire new teachers. Teachers retire, take a job elsewhere, leave the state or leave the profession. This creates a vacancy.
On the other hand, teachers get displaced because they are no longer needed where they are. The population declines or a program is eliminated. Right now, most states have a raging fiscal crisis as well as a declining school-age population. So, through no fault of their own, teachers are being displaced.
Bumping solves the problem of displaced teachers by placing them in the vacancies, according to seniority, whether the teacher is a good fit or not. Terrible idea. High-quality education needs a different, separate solution to each issue.
Emily Cohen, the director of district policy at the National Council on Teacher Quality assures me that R.I.’s problem is not unique. “Bumping is a national problem. But the national picture is changing. States and districts are addressing it. For example, lots of districts are moving towards site-based hiring.”
Yes. Site-based hiring is when the staff at the school makes the decision as to who should be on their team. You would never hire a doctor, lawyer, or even a gardener or wedding-cake maker, off a list of the displaced. You would examine their merits and choose the one that best fits your needs.
So the solution to hiring is maddeningly simple, as Cohen indicates. What each state needs is a big fat law that says: Every vacancy at a school is a golden opportunity to get the best possible teacher in front of those kids. Use it! And use it wisely.
R.I.’s new education commissioner, Deborah Gist, is adamant about working to improve teacher quality, as evidenced by her recently released three-year plan. She’s already reinforced the previous commissioner’s orders to end bumping in certain urban districts. In response, Providence lost little time creating a protocol for “criterion-based” (or site-based) hiring. The Providence teachers union has filed a lawsuit to stop it.
But of course. Our local labor unions are very old-fashioned and will likely oppose anything that even remotely disturbs seniority. Hiring by seniority is the foundation to traditional union power. But I don’t think the state has time, money or patience to let 36 different school districts fight separate battles with each of their unions to get to a 21st-century hiring process. A single regulation from the state, effective the moment each contract expires, would allow schools to get the best teachers they can, when vacancies occur.
But that leaves the problem of displaced, or “excessed” teachers.
Cohen believes that “If teachers don’t find a position after a year, they should be cut. Chicago and Austin have negotiated contracts that say that after a year, you’re dismissed from the system.”
Hmmm. That’s a bit harsh. I might give them two or three years, so the time is limited, but enough to burnish their credentials or skills if need be. In the meantime, they could have a permanent substitute position at one school, two at the most, where they can be a member of a school community, instead of floating among schools where they can’t integrate into a school culture, or be properly evaluated.
And pensions are a major problem. If excess teachers had the public equivalent of a 401-k, they could take their retirement with them. Traditional “defined benefit” pensions, now virtually absent from the private sector, require teachers to stick to the job for 20-plus years to get anything. Though they do get some money back when they leave the system, it’s a double-blow to let teachers go dissed and dismissed.
Excessing is not the teacher’s fault. So we should treat them well. But if after a generous two or three years, teachers have not gotten a permanent job, let them go. It’s not fair to incur long-term financial burdens that do not benefit kids.
And separately, we badly need to pass that law or regulation that makes every vacancy an opportunity to get the best possible teacher for students. It would remove a millstone from the neck of every school, struggling or not.
Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults for government agencies and schools; she is co-director of Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project. She can be reached at juliasteiny@gmail.com, or c/o EdWatch, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.
