Remember the cash-prize contest to get rid of America’s 10 worst teachers unveiled a few days ago? A publicity stunt, to be sure, but it looks like Center for Union Facts already has received some worthy nominations:
We’ve received more than three hundred nominations since our “Ten Worst Union-Protected Teachers†contest launched at TeachersUnionExposed.com on Tuesday. Just to give you a hint of what’s been coming our way, here are a few of the entries we’ve received so far (edited for privacy and clarity, of course):
* Music teacher. Takes personal cell phone calls and answers e-mail while kids are in the room waiting to be taught. She yells at them if they start to talk because she can’t hear. Doesn’t really teach anyways. Plays sing-along videos while she naps. Worst teacher I’ve ever seen.
* She can be heard shouting at her FIRST grade students all the way to the end of the hall. She threw a book at a student last year. She kicked a student the year before. She told my son he was too stupid to ever be anything. She also told him he’d never be smart enough to do anything but be an idiot. To this day, he’s a 4th grade homeschool student, he believes he’s too stupid to do anything. She deserves the nomination because she’s EARNED IT.
* [Nominee] is an raging alcoholic. He drinks Scope and spits wherever he feels. He doesn’t know what an iron or ironing board looks like. He sleeps on the job in his office and repeatedly comes to class late because his inner alarm clock never rings. I don’t even know if he is a good teacher or a bad one but the icing on the cake is the fact that recently he has been urinating in a bottle and leaving it on the floor of his office because he is too lazy to actually walk to the men’s room.Do you have a bad union-protected teacher you’d like to nominate? Visit TeachersUnionExposed.com to submit your entry.
There’s no doubt the teachers union plays a major part in keeping teachers like these ones from being dismissed. But they don’t have the only blame: Unions thrive as protectors of their members’ jobs where ineffectual management and leadership exist. Of course, unions can complain about the problem all they want – they aren’t that interested in changing the situation.
Meanwhile, whether administrators and board members have the political will to deal with the problem, bad teachers with tenure protections will remain hard to get out of the classroom.
Colorado law around teacher due process is pretty weak. If a district wants to move to dismiss a teacher there is nothing stopping them. The “union” has no magic powers to prevent someone from being dismissed. Rather the union ensures the process is run fairly and the person has representation at the hearing. Instead of focusing on “bad teachers” and the evil teacher union why have you not focused on ineffectual management and leadership of districts? The district often pays their union dues for them but I never hear a peep about that from the anti-public education folks. In my experience, the most persistent obstruction to deep and lasting reform often is not the teacher but the administration. Oh, and by the way, there is no tenure for public school teachers Ben. Just due process.
off the record…I read your “who writes this blog.” Well done and very well written. But I have a question, what exactly are your education/labor credentials? Feel free to email me a response if you have an opportunity.
fran
Fran,
Long time, no communicate. How are you doing? Thanks for the tremendous affirmation.
Nevertheless, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “there you go again” with the sophistry. I’m not sure who you’re trying to convince, but it’s highly doubtful that your attempt was at all productive. Please note the following:
1. Be careful to read posts before submitting comments. I wrote: “But they don’t have the only blame: Unions thrive as protectors of their members’ jobs where ineffectual management and leadership exist. Of course, unions can complain about the problem all they want – they aren’t that interested in changing the situation.” Please list what unions have done to promote effective management and leadership in our public schools.
2. Using the name “due process” rather than “tenure” is a semantical game, and you know it. The union fights tooth and nail to keep the onerous procedures of Colorado Revised Statutes 22-63-401 et seq. in place, as visualized at http://commongood.org/colorado-dismissal.html
But don’t take my word for it. Try some “anti-public education” person like Alan Gottlieb, a Democrat who works for the Public Education and Business Coalition. The consensus around the harmful effects of these “due process” or “tenure” policies, especially for kids in challenging urban school environments, is growing on a well-founded basis of research.
3. Colorado law may be pretty weak, say, compared to New York City. But that hasn’t prevented several cases where school districts have had to spend in excess of $100,000 to remove a problem teacher.
4. Thanks for your second comment, too. Just like an NEA official to confuse expertise and credentials. And it’s Education Policy & Labor Policy, not education & labor. I don’t need to send you an email.
Of course, expertise has its limits, but having a deep background in critical thinking and communication through a broad liberal arts education + having taken the time to read, study, digest & analyze the salient research and primary sources is a good start.
Hopefully, this response will have been beneficial to those seeking to discern honest inquiry from agenda-driven sophistry. Free-thinking minds can discern for themselves.