Confronting the Myths About Tenure and Teachers' Unions

Saturday 11 December 2010
by: Ellen Dannin, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis


Current American education policy is built on these assumptions: The quality of American education has plummeted because our schools are filled with teachers who can't teach. Teachers' unions and contracts tie the hands of school administrators. And teachers' unions protect bad teachers. Here are a few reasons why these conclusions are leading our educational system in a bad direction.

First, these policies ignore the effects of poverty on educational outcomes. Given the increasing number of children growing up in poverty, we ignore its effects at our peril.

I know something about poverty and its effects because I grew up in an impoverished, single-parent home and attended a low-quality school through eighth grade. Despite those beginnings, I graduated from one of the top US law schools and am now a law professor. If I could make it, then poverty must not matter, right?

But not all poverty is the same. My mother had a nursing degree and our home was filled with books. We lived in rural, small-town poverty near my farmer grandparents, who made certain we had good-quality food. Crime in our area was almost nonexistent. I am white, and my family has spoken standard English for generations. And there wasn't much of a gap between the poorest and the richest in that area.

<skip>

It is a myth that tenure means lifetime employment and makes it impossible to fire bad workers. What tenure does is require an employer to have cause to fire an employee. Union contracts require the use of a fair process to determine whether there is cause to fire an employee. In other words, schools can already fire teachers if they have good cause - so all getting rid of tenure would do is let schools fire teachers when they do not have good cause to fire them. It's hard to see how firing good teachers would improve our schools.

more . . . http://www.truth-out.org/confronting-myths-about-tenure-and-teachers-unions65822

I am in schools, city, suburban, and rural on a regular basis and I see wonderful teaching each and every time I observe in classrooms. Amazing, talented, committed, and caring teachers.

you can't reform education by demoralizing the very people who will be doing the work necessary to enact the reforms.

The right wingers who are crying crocodile tears about the poor children are determined to bring the union movement in this country to its knees...

We've already lost most of the protections tenure provides. Mine used to mean I was only evaluated every couple years. But I've been evaluated 4 times in the past 3 years. And for those who think an evaluation is just a sit down with the boss to discuss your work, it's not. It's a very involved months long process that includes formal as well as informal observations of my teaching and multiple unscheduled classroom visitations where every detail in my room is scrutinized, from what I put up on my bulletin boards to how I have student work areas organized. Then a multi page document is filled out by both my administrator and myself. Last year's eval form was 20 pages. This year I hear it's down to 17.

This is obviously a completely unnecessary yearly process for experienced teachers. And a complete waste of time. The other gem is we have been told that if our school's most recent test scores are poor, then we won't receive good evaluations. Since I wasn't even on staff at my school when the most recent tests were administered, it doesn't seem fair to tell me I can't expect a good evaluation. But that's how it works.

So since we have already lost tenure privileges, this is definitely an attempt to break the unions. Glad you get it. :)

and turn them into outsiders. This is a massive smear job. Why? because they don't like union power against them politically. Nothing personal, mind you, just politics...so what if it's your job...

I've had it with these evilmongers...

They can hire two brand new TFA interns for what they pay me. So they have to run off us old timers. We're also more likely to be active in the union than the young ones. And TFA tells its folks the union is evil so getting them to join is tough. I'm certain they believe that in a few years the unions will be dying and weakening them now is just nudging the process along.

And yes I've had it with these evil doers as well. The idea that our children don't deserve experienced well trained teachers is just beyond offensive.

The system does need reform so that better teachers get paid better. I understand many unions do oppose pay scales. I have dealt with unions in other circumstances, and they can cause problems, they can be luddites, and they don't allow efficiencies to be introduced. In the end, everybody loses, and factories close.

I have worked in union shops, and yes, sometimes they do. Since I happen to be a lot harder working than the average guy, it always bothered me to see how it was done. On the other hand, I don't necessarily think unions are bad. I just think they do need to be more pragmatic, and sometimes they are run by dinosaurs.

and follow closely what goes on in the largest teachers union. Most of the teachers here on DU belong to it.

Neither of those unions oppose pay scales.

I countries with the best education systems, teachers are paid, and respected, on the same scale that doctors are here.

The fact is that getting an education degree requires more hours than about any other undergraduate degree. Thus the debt burden mounts up and most students take a look at the debt burden they will incur, the starting pay for teachers and say "screw it," and go for the business degree or something else more lucrative, like dropping out and becoming a garbageman. I've seen numerous top flight students who would have made great teachers drop out of education and go into something else because they figured that in the long run, they couldn't afford to be a teacher.

class has zero failures and zero dropouts in a well-funded, parent supported suburban school? Or the teacher whose class had 3 dropouts and four failures, and several students who often didn't show up for class because they were afraid of having to walk through gang territory on their way to school - but whose last year's class had 8 dropouts and seven flat out failures out of 35 students?

Teaching is a challenge under the best of circumstances (teacher A) but is damn near impossible under other circumstances - I guarantee, Teacher A's class tested out much better than Teacher B's class did. It is the teacher's fault if his school is impoverished? Should the teacher whose class tests well, with no societal challenges, be paid better than the heavily challenged teacher who must work twice as hard to get half the result?

If you can come up with an answer, please let your local teacher's union know - they'd be VERY interested.

education. This is not just about the teachers. I sure wish union advocates would at least open themselves up to the fact that some change must be made. There is a growing segment of the population that is becoming throw away kids. Not the rich kids, or middle class kids, but the poor ones. Schools where good teachers refuse to teach. I know teachers that will only work in certain areas and districts ( they fear for their lives and worry about the conditions and equipment at these poor schools) I don't blame them but guess who gets shuffled to these schools, the so-so or poor quality
teacher.

How about schools not be held to budgets set by crazy Republicans that keep cutting the education budget.

It is a deformer's meme that unions defend the status quo. That is ridiculous since every year there is some new program to implement. They never let anything stay in place long enough to see if it really works. So no, there is no laundry list of necessary changes. That's bullshit.

And as a teacher who has spent my career teaching what you are calling 'throw away kids' I resent your comment about only poor quality teachers working in our schools. More bullshit.

Not to mention the inadequate pay they receive. I think government should focus on those issues instead of pointing fingers at the teachers. Teachers are being asked to do a lot with just a little.

That is so incredibly true.

I grew up very poor, and while we didn't have a lot of books at home -- couldn't afford to buy them -- we went to the library with great regularity. My parents always assumed all six of us would go to college. Even though I was a child in the 1950's, they NEVER had the attitude that the girls would only get married and so a college education would be wasted on them.

We were poor but education was valued in my house. I never expected not to go to college. It was ingrained in me from a very early age.

I just wish some of these articles and/or their arguments would be allowed into the mainstream news media.

than attempts to privatize education, for profit, as well as simply breaking up more unions because you can't squeeze out the most profit per dollar if you have to deal with unionized workers. Unionized workers at their best push for similar benefits to other workers and fields, provide 'hope' for improvement in working conditions and allow a working populace to have a say in political discussions none of which is good for greedy American big business.