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Texas had the continuing contract which equates to tenure.
But Texas moved to term contracts (1-2 years) with anyone having a continuing contract grandfathered for as long as they had that position.
Continuing contract is exactly what tenure is at the K-12 level.
The term contracts required cause to be non-renewed, but do not have the same due process restrictions as a continuing contract. You still get a school board hearing, but not an independent examiner hearing, so the process is pretty simple. But a teacher whose term contract is not renewed could still bring a wrongful termination against the district. A probationary teacher who is not renewed cannot, and so they essentially have no discrimination protections.
I retired as a NYC high school math teacher 3 years ago. I took early retirement at 56, because I was fed up and had saved my money when I was younger. And yes, I saw lazy teachers. One guy just showed movies to his kids all day. Another just handed out the same worksheets term after term, like a robot. They were each collecting over $100k a year. But everyone always blames the teachers only. There are others involved, and the fish stinks from the head down.
My assistant principal was the worst waste of space I have ever seen. She spent her day working her makeup, her nails, and chatting on the phone with her sister. No joke, and no exaggeration. Two or three hours a day on the phone. She ran a small department, and never taught a class like they are supposed to. She made over $120k a year. Her friends would get paid for an extra period to sit around and chat with her. When one was absent, the others in her group would cover for the absentee. So they all had "perfect" sick records. That money belonged to the kids, not to the AP. I don't know how these people got away with this.
What everyone assumes, and which annoys me the most, is that students are distributed randomly like from a deck of shuffled cards. Nothing could be further from the truth. Teachers are tracked, just like the students. I am 6'5" and from day one, they wanted me as a cop, not as a math teacher. But not just me. The same teachers always got the good kids, the same teachers always got the tough kids. I would get 34 kids in an "on track" class, but 30 out of those 34 would be either special ed, remedial, or both. My friends told me I was good with them. So my reward for doing the hardest work of the organization was to get more of the same. Time and time again. Emotionally challenged, or hoodlums.
The classes of my AP's friends--the ones who got paid extra to chat--were composed of 20 Chinese girls. So who do you think got good results at the end of the year? Are the teachers in Watts or the South Bronx bad teachers because they get bad results? Are the teachers in Little Neck or Beverly Hills good teachers because they get good results? Even Mayor Bloomberg, no friend of teacher unions, said there had to be some way to account for this. But there really isn't.
How come the administrator allowed him to show movies all day. That should be easy to stop- just tell the teacher he can not do it. Document you told him and check daily what he is doing. If he disregards that order he is insubordinate and through progressive discipline starts to lose days of pay.
In many of these classes the admin isn't looking for academic performance. They have educational classes--filled with Chinese girls--for that. What they want in these other classes--filled with as one poster said "delinquents and dingbats"--is that there be no trouble. No fights or what have you. Baby sitting classes is what they are. These kids are segregated out so they don't pull down the numbers in the good classes.
No tenure does seem to turn teaching into an AT-WILL situation. You are liable to be fired for making too much money (though now it is very unlikely teaching will ever pay enough have have a life), fired because you refused to work that 15th extra hour at the football game or sponsor that after school club, or wax the floors and take the trash out, or refused to raise Bobby's grade in algebra just because his mom is the assistant superintendent, or because you refused to resign your union membership....
The problem with teaching as an at will profession is there is no competition for teachers. Teachers tend to be hired into a district and retire from that district. It's not like industry where it's common for people to move to gain pay or better opportunities. Since teachers start at step one in a district every time they move, they don't want to move. In industry, I saw people put 25% on their salary by moving.
I remember one coworker who really wanted a management position but wasn't moving that direction so she took a job in another company for a year then hired back in as a manager and about doubled her salary with the two moves.
Teaching as an at will profession will work only if districts start offering more pay to entice good teacher's away from other districts. Lateral moves in teaching are costly.
The problem with teaching as an at will profession is there is no competition for teachers. Teachers tend to be hired into a district and retire from that district. It's not like industry where it's common for people to move to gain pay or better opportunities. Since teachers start at step one in a district every time they move, they don't want to move. In industry, I saw people put 25% on their salary by moving.
I remember one coworker who really wanted a management position but wasn't moving that direction so she took a job in another company for a year then hired back in as a manager and about doubled her salary with the two moves.
Teaching as an at will profession will work only if districts start offering more pay to entice good teacher's away from other districts. Lateral moves in teaching are costly.
Texas doesn't work like that. Step pay is based on years of teaching experience, not years with the district/school.
You shouldn't have to molest kids or commit heinous crimes against children in order to be fired, and that's part of the problem.
You are right, but that was one of the main concerns the LAUSD Sup. stated during his testimony about how difficult it is even to get rid of teachers who commit heinous crimes against students was my main point. Now if you are talking about teachers who can't manage a classroom or who just can't be effective with students. Then, that falls on the administration for allowing that teacher to get tenure in the first place.
How is that any different compared to the working world?
It's not I am just stating something my friend told me. But I can see where this is going, and I think that as a teacher with 21 years of teaching experience behind me, it saddens me that people aren't really addressing what's actually going on many of our classrooms. Just go visit your local high school, middle or elementary school and you might be amazed at the good classroom instruction that's going on, or your might be shocked to find out what many teachers are dealing with day in and day out in their classrooms, and for many it's not pretty at all.
I'm confused here. I am in favor of getting rid of bad teachers, but how is tenure deemed unconstitutional?
According to the judge who ruled on this, he feels that the state's laws governing teacher tenure and the firing of public school teachers is unconstitutional because they interfere with the state's obligation to provide every child with access to a good education.
Now what's so funny about that statement is the fact of class sizes in the state of California. Some school districts, have as many as 34 elementary children in one classroom. I work for a district where I had as many as 34 students in my classroom. Now that the state of CA has a little more money to play with, my district will reduce my class size by a WHOPPING two students where I can max out at 32 and have no less than 28 for the next coming school year.
So please tell me, when 85% of my students are second language learners, and with the law that says I AM MANDATED TO PROVIDE 30 MINUTES of ELD English Language Development Instruction for my ELL students at different English Learning Level proficiency that I am able to juggle all of the other subjects that I have to teach by providing those students with a good education?
I have too many in my classroom with different learning levels and abilities to be highly effective as they want me to be. When you look at how the whole ELD program is supposed to work, and the reality of it in our classrooms, that in of itself is interfering with every ELL child having access to a good education because the state doesn't want to pay ELD teachers to pull those students out of the classroom to get that English language development support. Instead, California elementary teachers have to juggle the 5 different ELD levels by not having more than two level groups together while the English only kids are left to fend for themselves during that 30 min block.
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How does a fish stink?
