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I wish I could say you are wrong but I can't. In industry, there is no one person who holds the strings. I've had bad bosses before and that fact did not go unnoticed by other bosses in the area. There was help to be found. If you have a bad principal, there is no help to be found. The next level up is over in the admin building and never sees what goes on in the school. Ditto for the next principal over. He's in his school. The teachers see but they are powerless to help.
I have never felt so helpless where I am in spite of my peers rallying around me and doing everything in their power to stop my principal from denying tenure. He has his mind made up and that is it. I will be gone in June. I've come to the conclusion this is some kind of power trip for him. It's been suggested that his reasons for not liking me are that I'm older, female, and came from industry but it doesn't matter why. He has all the cards in his hand and I have none. Because I'm not tenured, I don't even get a hearing where my peers could speak to the board on my behalf. That's all tenure means anymore but it's something. Because I'm not tenured, the board will hear only what he brings to the board. They won't even talk to me as that was his job.
However, from what I can see, most teachers are not on my principal's radar like I am so this is really only an issue for the unlucky few who are for some reason disliked by their principals. There are two others in my building he attacks the same way but they've been with the district for 30 years and he's just trying to get them to retire (he doesn't seem to like older teachers). He can't actually do anything to them because they've been around too long so none of what is going on with them will make it to the board. He'll just put negative comments in their evaluations. They are in turn trying to make his life miserable but it's just fun and games. No one who matters sees what is happening at the school. They only see the presentations that are polished for the board and what they see when they come through on tours and that is all staged.
Fortunately, principals can't afford to do this too often or the board will figure out that they are the problem. I figure it's a scare tactic like the big paddle with holes in it in the principal's office when I was in school. He had to use it just often enough to keep everyone in fear of it. That's what I'm convinced my principal is doing with me. He's getting rid of a teacher that the other teachers think is a good teacher just to show them he has that kind of power. I'm the unlucky kid who got the paddle so the principal could prove he'd actually use it. I'm not sure there was ever anything I could have done to stop this. I think it was decided on day one and I've come to the conclusion too late that anything my peers do to try and help me actually makes this worse because it never was about whether or not I'm a good teacher. He was going to show them that he has the power to destroy careers and will. I think the more they try to help, the more determined he becomes to get rid of me. HE is not going to change his mind because of what people under him say. They don't count. Their voices are being dismissed. One of the other teachers said to me in dismay after something I did that yielded great results got ignored then glossed over when it was brought up to him that it is as if he has me in the bottom of a bucket labeled Ivory's faults and every little thing I've ever done wrong in his eyes is in that bucket and he cannot see me without looking through all of my faults. Nothing I've ever done right even makes the bucket. When brought up to him he says those aren't things I need to work on.
This system has zero checks and balances. The fact that 50% of new teachers leave the profession by year 5 is telling of the hostile environment many of us work in. On the flip side, if you have a great principal, life is golden.
You are right. Having the wrong principal can indeed be the biggest problem for an individual teacher, however, even the worst principals can't afford to go after too many of their teachers without making themselves look bad so teachers like you and I will remain in the minority and because of that, people will assume the problem is us and there is nothing we can do about that. It just sucks.
I'm still trying to get back into engineering and if that doesn't pan out, I'll go teach in Detroit next year. They're desperate enough for teachers that they'll take someone like me who was denied tenure. Moving from the burbs to Detroit is going to be a major learning curve for me, that's for sure but a paycheck's a paycheck if you have nothing else and I have to work at least 10 more years. There's just not enough in my retirement account to retire now.
Now that I'm thoroughly depressed I think I'll go apply for a few dozen engineering jobs... I am WAY overdue for a break.
Unless you've been through the wringer, nobody on the outside, even if they are currently teachers, can really understand it. As for fellow teachers being powerless to do anything about it, they more often than not will knife you in the back should a principal need them for the "due process" hearing to bail them out. They will lie about you under oath because administrative hearings aren't governed by the same rules as true legal proceedings held in court. You can't ever be friends with colleagues if you have this knowledge you can be thrown under the bus by these same people.
A lot of the problem with terrible principals comes from the fact school districts are rampant with nepotism and cronyism. I came across this cached link which discusses this issue:
I was allegedly "post-probationary," but it didn't matter because I had no due process at all, just a sham hearing rigged by the higher administrators in order to cover up for their stupidity and malfeasance. The association was worthless and it and its lawyer didn't tell me one word about filing a complaint with EEOC. There is no way of finding out about going the civil route without being told. The civil route is contingent on filing an EEOC complaint, which has an extremely short statute of limitations; without the letter of the right to sue, finding an attorney to take your case is virtually impossible.
One challenge that hasn't been mentioned in regards to teaching to the test is that little attention is paid to electives as we are too concerned with passing the three Rs on tests.
Unless you've been through the wringer, nobody on the outside, even if they are currently teachers, can really understand it. As for fellow teachers being powerless to do anything about it, they more often than not will knife you in the back should a principal need them for the "due process" hearing to bail them out. They will lie about you under oath because administrative hearings aren't governed by the same rules as true legal proceedings held in court. You can't ever be friends with colleagues if you have this knowledge you can be thrown under the bus by these same people.
A lot of the problem with terrible principals comes from the fact school districts are rampant with nepotism and cronyism. I came across this cached link which discusses this issue:
I was allegedly "post-probationary," but it didn't matter because I had no due process at all, just a sham hearing rigged by the higher administrators in order to cover up for their stupidity and malfeasance. The association was worthless and it and its lawyer didn't tell me one word about filing a complaint with EEOC. There is no way of finding out about going the civil route without being told. The civil route is contingent on filing an EEOC complaint, which has an extremely short statute of limitations; without the letter of the right to sue, finding an attorney to take your case is virtually impossible.
While my colleagues try, I wouldn't expect any of them, individually, to defend me if it meant their job would be on the line. It's not likely any of them could help me and I wouldn't want to see them throw their job out the window to save mine. Unfortunately, I have one more strike against me and that is I'm an outsider. I teach in a district where being born and raised there means you will be defended even if you are wrong. Which is another reason I expect I'm going to lose come June.
It is what it is and I can't change it. Other than scrambling to find something else before I get canned, I'm not worrying about it. There really is no sense worrying about what you cannot change. I have to work on what I can change and that is finding an engineering job before I'm cut loose.
I am secretly hoping that they find they can't replace me. When he made the decision to use my math major to offer a physics/math job to someone who didn't have the math portion, my principal locked himself into needing someone who is certified in chemistry, math and physics with majors in both chemistry and math (the parents in my district do not like people with minors teaching their children). That would be poetic justice but I'm not holding my breath. Chem/physics/math majors are a dime a dozen around here so someone with all three shouldn't be hard to find....but I can hope...
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 12-29-2013 at 09:38 PM..
The biggest problem facing teachers is totally inept administration, all the way up to the State Departments of Education.
Most of the folks that end up here could not manage their way out of a paper bag. They have even less leadership skills, ability or training. Folks in the education bureaucracy never have to take or understand economics. They are clueless about opportunity costs, marginal utilitiy, and all the econcomic concepts that drive the universe. As a result they are always chasing "the good" and never terminating anything. The plate gets fuller and fuller but they have no clue how to get the monster under control.
Higher ups in education routinely promote the stupid, they lack the tools to discriminate, analyze, prioritize.
Look at it this way. In business, a leader seldom has more than 9 direct reports. I think, 7 is optimal. In a middle school the principal has upwards of 40. That one example says it all. I am not saying that we should run schools as a business, but if the best corporate brains can manage, 7 to 9 direct reports, why in the world would we expect principals to succeed with 5 times that many.
Ditto, ditto, ditto!! I made a career change into this field a few years ago, but I am definitely getting OUT ...and I'm 50 now. Out on sick leave right now because of complications brought on by the stress of this job... I hate to make another change at this point, but I cannot take this anymore. Its either leave or have failing health.... Administrators with unrealistic expectations are the my main reason! Teachers are expected to work a lot of majic with no supplies, no planning time, no help for small groups... it is so, so bad and disappointing!! Teaching is not fun like it must have been long ago
Ditto, ditto, ditto!! I made a career change into this field a few years ago, but I am definitely getting OUT ...and I'm 50 now. Out on sick leave right now because of complications brought on by the stress of this job... I hate to make another change at this point, but I cannot take this anymore. Its either leave or have failing health.... Administrators with unrealistic expectations are the my main reason! Teachers are expected to work a lot of majic with no supplies, no planning time, no help for small groups... it is so, so bad and disappointing!! Teaching is not fun like it must have been long ago
I'll bet it's not much fun for students anymore either.
I always though that leadership was some kind of corporate world bs, but I have realized that most administrators just do not want to be leaders of the school, but just see it as an step to a cushy, bureaucratic position in the district central office.
I was a school teacher, so my hat's off to those in the profession. I remember some conference I was at. The speaker said teachers make as many split second decisions in the course of a day as a fireman does putting out a house fire. I always wondered how he knew that tidbit, but I took it at face value.
What's are the toughest challenges facing teachers today?
Without reading the rest of the thread, I'm going to guess:
Apathetic and poorly disciplined kids
Apathetic/rude parents
Administrators and school boards demanding near-unachievable goals
"Common Core" curriculum
Standardized testing as opposed to actually teaching
That's exactly what I'm dealing with. I nearly got really hurt yesterday when two of my students squared up right outside my classroom and went after each other as I was trying to stop them. There was a ring of students around them in almost no time, and the looks on the faces of the spectators showed that they wanted to see blood. They live surrounded by violence, and fighting is something that they see as normal. They are amazed that I have never been in a fight. It's almost inconceivable to my students that someone can be insulted and not want to hit the offender. Trying to get them ready for college and career, where you can't just haul off and punch someone who looked at you wrong, is daunting.
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