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What I would question here is the phrase "lots of teacher".
I'm also not sure I would use the word duress ("threats, violence, constraints, or other action brought to bear on someone to do something against their will or better judgment").
I would use the word duress, as I am sure the non-tenured teachers who find themselves in that position would. Because of the constant moves associated with my husband’s military career I have had to apply for more jobs than the average teacher, I am fairly certain every single application I filled out asked in some manner whether or not I ever was non-renewed or denied tenure. Everyone knows most hiring school systems check as part of the final hiring process and there is a clear paper trail. Unlike most professions there is not much ambiguity in how the process works, plus institutional knowledge is cemented so the boss leaving is immaterial and the school system is not going to go out of business, so there can be no later revisionary history. I think most people would consider being told, if you don’t “voluntarily” resign you are going to permanently have the kiss of death on your career, duress.
You clearly have not been part of schools that had a large number of non-tenured teachers to witness the carnage. Sure, teachers do voluntarily resign, but trust me, as someone who has had to explain a bunch of 1 or 2 year gigs, most people in education assume if you resigned prior to tenure, but were still seeking a job in the profession, it was because you were offered that option of resigning in lieu of not getting your contract renewed.
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Same! I try to avoid talking with administration at all costs. It's just better that way. A cordial hello or funny comment about something random to get a laugh is also in my bag of tricks.
Tried that one too. There are no guarantees in the education world.
I would use the word duress, as I am sure the non-tenured teachers who find themselves in that position would. Because of the constant moves associated with my husband’s military career I have had to apply for more jobs than the average teacher, I am fairly certain every single application I filled out asked in some manner whether or not I ever was non-renewed or denied tenure. Everyone knows most hiring school systems check as part of the final hiring process and there is a clear paper trail. Unlike most professions there is not much ambiguity in how the process works, plus institutional knowledge is cemented so the boss leaving is immaterial and the school system is not going to go out of business, so there can be no later revisionary history. I think most people would consider being told, if you don’t “voluntarily” resign you are going to permanently have the kiss of death on your career, duress.
You clearly have not been part of schools that had a large number of non-tenured teachers to witness the carnage. Sure, teachers do voluntarily resign, but trust me, as someone who has had to explain a bunch of 1 or 2 year gigs, most people in education assume if you resigned prior to tenure, but were still seeking a job in the profession, it was because you were offered that option of resigning in lieu of not getting your contract renewed.
Shame on me for being part of a stable school system for 20 years.
Schools in Maryland (where I taught for 13 years) do have tenure, but it is not a be-all and end-all. Having been a union rep in Maryland in a not very stable school system, I still rarely saw what you're describing. https://www.marylandeducators.org/tenure
I was school librarian in a huge (too huge) middle school in a blue collar to middle class small town. The students were chaotic, there was almost no discipline (of course "discipline" is a bad word now), the building was of a terrible design, the open concept with no walls on the classrooms, kids were bringing knives to school, maybe guns, and police were stationed in the lobby by the time I got fed up with teaching there.
Our faculty meetings were mainly concerned with weapons and gangs. We got a new principal every couple of years because it was so hard to work there. It's not the worst school but people would have been surprised if they had known what went on. I don't think very much learning occurred in that school.
The year I was hired, a teacher had just been fired. Apparently she'd had enough of the obnoxious back talk from the kids and no support from the administration. Finally, she cracked and when an especially rotten kid took a swing at her in class, she fought back. I think she grabbed him to make him stop.
So she was fired and she said it ruined her life. (Turned out the kid's dad was a cop in the town and he threatened to sue the school district...)
So a good teacher who tried to set the stage for learning by getting the kids to sit still and keep quiet, was fired. Most of the rest of the teachers in that school let the kids run wild and didn't bother trying to teach.
We got a new principal. I saw two teachers get set up to be fired. One was extremely incompetent. She would stand there and talk over the screaming kids, ignoring the fact that they were throwing things, climbing all over the desks, even running around. It was as if she were talking in her sleep! The other teacher was disabled and previously had been paired with a few special needs kids--she was a good teacher but she couldn't keep up with a large class of kids. They mocked her disability and she was too sweet to handle the abuse.
So, to get them fired, the administration set them up with a class of over 50 eighth graders in the school library. It was like war, books were flying through the air, tables were upended, chairs were thrown--for the entire hour of class. Few good teachers could have handled this number of tough kids so of course, the sweet disabled teacher and Miss Out-of-It didn't do well. At the end of the year, the principal came to what was left of the library after this fiasco and asked ME to sign papers saying that these two teachers were incompetent. I knew that at least Miss Out-of-It was a horrible teacher, but I still refused to sign those papers. I felt like I was being used and I hated that they had allowed this beautiful school library to be destroyed by the warfare that they had set up. I resigned. There must have been some better way to fire a teacher than to set them up, deprive the other kids of library time, and, in the long run, destroy so many books and other materials, even furniture.
The only other time I saw a teacher actually get fired was an elementary school gym teacher who was into some sort of child porn. Didn't know much about it except what the other teachers told me.
What I wish I had seen during my teaching career, was some help from the administration, some support. Some teachers are not meant to be teachers but others could become effective if someone just took the time to help them. Either a mentor or some help from an administrator. But these days the administrators seem to have become the enemies of the teachers. Maybe it was better back in the old days when the principal was also the head teacher, someone who was out there on the front lines seeing what it was like day in and day out. One of us. I partially blame unions for the mess we are in. But society and unruly kids are mostly to blame.
As you are aware, Virginia’s continuing contracts are what most people consider tenure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Schools in Maryland (where I taught for 13 years) do have tenure, but it is not a be-all and end-all. Having been a union rep in Maryland in a not very stable school system, I still rarely saw what you're describing. https://www.marylandeducators.org/tenure
Perhaps you weren’t looking.
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Schools in Maryland (where I taught for 13 years) do have tenure, but it is not a be-all and end-all. Having been a union rep in Maryland in a not very stable school system, I still rarely saw what you're describing. https://www.marylandeducators.org/tenure
You and I both taught in that same not very stable system, me more recently, and trust me what I've described as happening is current, ongoing and prevalent.
As you are aware, Virginia’s continuing contracts are what most people consider tenure.
Perhaps you weren’t looking.
When you're a union rep, you can't not look. Teachers brought a number of issues to me, and in fact, as the union rep and also the chairperson of the faculty advisory council to the principal...I was always on the firing line.
You and I both taught in that same not very stable system, me more recently, and trust me what I've described as happening is current, ongoing and prevalent.
From what I hear of that Maryland school system, it's only gotten way worse since my 13 years there...and that was a long time ago.
From what I hear of that Maryland school system, it's only gotten way worse since my 13 years there...and that was a long time ago.
I had forgotten that you have been out of education for a while, that might be part of the explainantion of why you haven’t witnessed this. Post 2000, especially the last decade or so, the treatment of teachers has become just ruthless. Teachers are often looked upon as expendable by far too many on the administration side. That factor, even more so than pay, will have to be addressed as school systems start struggling more to fill their classrooms with the looming teacher shortage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by North Beach Person
You and I both taught in that same not very stable system, me more recently, and trust me what I've described as happening is current, ongoing and prevalent.
Absolutely.
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There are no guarantees in the education world.
