Sunday, May 3, 2009

Failing Teachers Get a Pass at L.A. Unified

Unless you're a parent or an educator, teacher tenure probably isn't the hottest of hot-button issues on your political agenda. But as we watch the debates over national education reform heat up in the years ahead, especially considering the refusal of the Barack Obama administration to support the Opportunity Scholarship Program in Washington D.C.'s public schools, keep in mind this Los Angeles Times investigative report on firing teachers at Los Angeles Unified School District.

This part right here is actually
heart-rending:

Jettisoning a teacher solely because he or she can't teach is rare. In 80% of the dismissals that were upheld, classroom performance was not even a factor.

When teaching is at issue, years of effort - and thousands of dollars - sometimes go into rehabilitating the teacher as students suffer. Over the three years before he was fired, one struggling math teacher in Stockton was observed 13 times by school officials, failed three year-end evaluations, was offered a more desirable assignment and joined a mentoring program as most of his ninth-grade students flunked his courses.

As a case winds its way through the system, legal costs can soar into the six figures.

Meanwhile, said Kendra Wallace, principal of
Daniel Webster Middle School on Los Angeles' Westside, an ineffective teacher can instruct 125 to 260 students a year - up to 1,300 in the five years she says it often takes to remove a tenured employee.

"The hardest conversation to have is when a student comes in and looks at you and says, 'Can you please come teach our class?' " she said.

When coaching and other improvement efforts don't work, she said, "You're in the position of having to look at 125 kids and just say, 'I'm sorry,' because the process of removal is really difficult. . . . You're looking at these kids and knowing they are going to high school and they're not ready. It is absolutely devastating."
Read the whole thing, here.

The article cites
Obama's major address on education in March, where he announced,"It is time to start rewarding good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones ... I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences."

But as the Times piece indicates, the nation's tenure system itself may protect bad teachers from facing the consequences of their poor teaching. And, think unions!

7 comments:

  1. My experience of the LA school system is summed up in this: I'm a Casper white skinned male who speaks perfect English. I was put in the Spanish-speaking kindergarten class for two weeks before they put me in the English speaking one.

    Also, Linkage!

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  2. Dr.D,
    UNIONS, UNIONS, UNIONS. There's the problem. The NEA ceased being a labor union many years ago and became a PAC for the dems. I am an agency fee payer. I get some of my money back, but it is the only protest I can wage against this bastion of leftism, disguised as a union.

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  3. Dear Mr. Douglas: Mickey Kaus links to the same article you link to, but observes that if the LA TIMES is taking a shot at the teachers's unions, what is the GOP waiting for? The more so since Education Secretary Arne Duncan was sold to the nation as a reformer. Hahahahahaha, look at Duncan's NEA minders, fondling their fixed bayonets.

    What IS the GOP waiting for?

    Sincerely yours,
    Gregory Koster

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  4. If you cannot afford to send your children to a non-government school, then do this country a favor and don't have children.

    Government schools in this country have failed miserably.

    -Dave

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  5. Nice Dave.

    And so offensive on so many levels. I won't rebut it, though. It's proof positive that you lack said education. And I'm sorry about that. I'm sure you can take some night classes though.

    Start at K and work your way up buddy.

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  6. Don't get me started on bad teachers. They are the bane of my existence. Sometimes I wonder what they actually learned the year before.

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  7. I will never allow my kids to attend a public school in America.

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