In
about a month the 2013 legislative session will be upon us and the attacks on
teacher tenure will begin anew.
One
of the enduring myths propagated by the so-called reformers is that there are
thousands upon thousands of bad teachers in this country who cannot be fired
because they have been given tenure and their jobs are being protected at the
expense of brilliant young teachers who could have saved education.
To
back up this allegation, we always see the same anecdotal evidence trotted out.
It’s either the young teacher of the year who is let go because of rules
requiring that veteran teachers be retained, or it is the veteran teacher who
has committed all kinds of atrocities that should disqualify him from ever setting
foot in a classroom again who cannot be dislodged.
No
one ever questions just how meaningless most “teacher of the year” awards are
and how many times the awards have little or nothing to do with teaching
ability.
And
no one ever looks into the administrative failures that led to the bad teacher
somehow managing to hold on to his job.
As
the attacks on teacher tenure continue, you can expect to see another line used
which has become familiar over the past few years- Why should teachers have
protection that no other worker has?
As
someone who covered board of education meetings for 22 years as a newspaper
reporter before entering the teaching field, I cannot tell you how many dozens
of times I saw board members elected whose sole goal was to remove a teacher
who had supposedly committed some wrong against the board member’s child.
Considering the importance of education in our lives, it is incredible to
realize that there are those who actually decide to run for school board
because their son or daughter did not receive enough playing time in a
sport…and often they win.
Teachers
also need protection against ambitious, my-way-or-the-highway administrators
who come in with dictatorial methods and are willing to remove anyone who
questions their judgment. If tenure is removed, teachers in many school
districts will no longer have the ability to question changes that could have a
negative impact on them and the children they serve. And as anyone who has been
in education knows, it is a field in which an administrator who is trying to
make a name for himself can do an incredible amount of damage in a short amount
of time. In many cases, those administrators have moved on to the next step up
the ladder in a year or two. With tenure, at least when they leave, there will
be a solid educational framework intact. If administrators are allowed to fire
whomever they want without any restrictions, when they leave, all they remain
in the wake are sycophants who do not have the same level of dedication to the
school or to the community.
Before
we take the road toward destroying a system that has, for the most part, been
beneficial to American public school systems, we need to do considerably more
research, even though I am coming closer every day to being convinced that
“educational research” is an oxymoron.
We
have all heard the statistics about how many teachers drop out of the
profession before they have even taught for five years. Why are those teachers
dropping out? We are always led to believe that the teachers who decided to get
out while the getting was good were the cream of the crop and the ones who have
stayed in the classroom are the ones who are gaming the system to get three
months off every summer and short workdays and who stop giving their all once
they have achieved tenure, but doesn’t it make more sense, that the ones who
have stuck it out in the classroom through all of the attacks on the profession
are most likely in it because they are good at what they do and genuinely care
for children?
I
have no doubt an in-depth study would show that most of them who left early
left because they simply did not have what it takes to be in the classroom.
It
takes a special kind of person to teach children who come from broken homes and
often receive their only good meals when they are at school and be expected to
have those children scoring at the advanced or proficient level on meaningless
standardized tests.
It
takes a dedicated professional to come to the classroom every day at a time
when his job is being demeaned by those who want to tear apart public education
and benefit from the privatization of what remains.
Many
people are not cut out for that kind of work and to paraphrase our Show-Me
State president- they couldn’t stand the heat so they got out of the kitchen.
Those
who have persevered deserve the protection of tenure. Tenure does not protect
bad teachers; they can still be fired.
The others need to know that if they do their jobs professionally, they
will be able to keep them.
No comments:
Post a Comment