Illinois Study on Teacher Tenure

legion · 12-06-2005, 05:37 AM

http://www.pantagraph.com/stories/120605/new_20051206070.shtml

"Of the more than 95,000 tenured teachers employed in the state, an average of only two a year are fired for poor job performance, the investigation found. Another five a year on average are dismissed for misconduct."

MotoSook · 12-06-2005, 09:25 AM

One more reason why I have considered teaching once I leave engineering....I can slack off all I want and not get fired! ...JK...

M.D. Holloway · 12-06-2005, 10:24 AM

True! Getting tenure at a college or university is a ticket to ride. Combine that with a cushy consulting gig! Now thats the High Life!

stevepaa · 12-06-2005, 11:05 AM

I'd give you guys maybe a month in 7 and 8 grade before you ran back to your job.

legion · 12-06-2005, 11:11 AM

I bet every parent in Illinois can name at least one teacher at each school that isn't pulling their weight. I would also think that far more teachers are slacking off than doing things that will get them dismissed for misconduct.

I didn't say that teaching was easy, but how can you have a high-performing workforce if you don't get rid of the slackers?

Superman · 12-06-2005, 11:13 AM

Sounds like Illinois teachers are impeccable.

gavinlit · 12-06-2005, 11:20 AM

I guess teaching must be the only profession where those pulling their weight are not immediately let go - right.
I believe those not performing in any job, regardless of what it is, should be given notice to lift their game & if not, given the flick. Judging by the poor quality workmanship and service I see in just about every facet of life I'd guess this dosn't happen.

One of the problems facing educational districts (at least in oz), is that if they were to get rid of all the slackers, there wouldn't be anyone to replace them. It's not a job that has people beating down the door. So you're left with having someone vaguely competent in the job or no one at all. Easy to see which option they choose.

stevepaa · 12-06-2005, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by legion
I didn't say that teaching was easy, but how can you have a high-performing workforce if you don't get rid of the slackers?

I expect that as soon as someone comes up with workable metrics to measure performance, then you can define what slacker means, and then you can pay more for higher performance.

legion · 12-06-2005, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gavinlit
I guess teaching must be the only profession where those pulling their weight are not immediately let go - right.

Not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that after a teacher has been identified, worked with, and still doesn't perform up to standard, they still don't get let go. Show me another profession where just 0.002% of the workforce gets fired each year for underperforming.

Here over double the number workers get fired each year for misconduct. You can't honestly make anyone believe that these numbers are so low because the teachers are that good. No, there is some artificial barrier to getting rid of the consistent underperformers.

Standards? How about what the principal says? The boss has final say in firing everywhere else...

Superman · 12-06-2005, 12:04 PM

In the olden days there were two professions into which women could go. They could be school teachers, and they could be nurses. Their husbands were the breadwinners, so these were second-income jobs.

And the pay reflected that. Additionally, ordinary women did not do this work. These were the women who were energetic, ambitious, smart, etc. Overall. So, we were paying peanuts for some top flight talent.

Have you guys noticed that these two occupations are having some growing pains in terms of compensation. They are moving closer to what wage analysts would call "equity," or equilibrium.

All of my four sisters have been school teachers at one time or another, and two are currently public school district employees. I'm not sure I've heard of any teacher in the last several years that did not have a Masters' degree or higher.

You whiners and teacher-basher/union-basher folks are not going to listen, but the truth is that if you want to have some more pure competition in the teaching field, be careful what you wish for. It's going to get spendy real fast. Teaching is not easy, and you're going to get what you pay for.

Plus, there is going to be intense competition for class seats. Education is the way out of our economic dangers. If you do away with public schools, you will have very intense competition for those private school seats, they will be more expensive than you can imagine, and only rich peoples' kids will have access. So, you'll have a permenent lower class, and a permanent upper class, and not much in the middle.

Two of my sisters are still school teachers. I out-earn them both. I have an MBA. One of them has nearly a doctorate, and the other has an impressive Masters degree from a foreign university under a rotary scholarship.

Currently, you have to go into teaching if you love teaching and are willing to sacrifice earnings. Or if you are lazy and don't want to work. I'm all for competition. It would compensate the good teachers more appropriately and eliminate the deadwood. But it will be expensive and you guys will have a brand new thing to whine about.

stevepaa · 12-06-2005, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by legion
Standards? How about what the principal says? The boss has final say in firing everywhere else...

No way is that true. There are standards of conduct for which you can be fired; lying about qualifications, sleeping on the job, intentional mis-charging of time. Poor job performance doesn't usually lead to firing, it just leads to no raise in salary or reassignment.
I could see you firing someone who you hired to repair tools, because he said he could, and then you find out he hasn't any idea on how to do it. But that could really be construed as poor job performance on your part; you should not be hiring unqualified people to start with. And if you could fire someone for poor performance, you would have had to have a metric to go by. Say repair ten tools a day on average, and your new hire only does two. But you would have told him your expectations before he was hired, given him complete description of his Function and Responsibility and expected output.

When a real F&R with performance metrics for teachers is established, then you can grade their performance and reward some and document faults of others and dismiss them. I have yet to see a workable metric for teaching.

MotoSook · 12-06-2005, 12:13 PM

I have to be honest. I really don’t have many bad things to say about the teachers that I had pre-college. Even though I lived in a poorly funded school system, I found that all the teachers who counted (teachers in classes like math and science) for me did a great job. Some of them I know went above and beyond their teaching duties, and that includes my grade school teachers. Maybe my story is a little different since I was an EASL student, so they might have helped me a bit more, or I was just a learning sponge. Who knows, but most teachers I know (or have known) appear to be in it because they love to teach.

Stevepaa: I know how tough Jr. High can be on teachers, heck even HS. I was not a bad student in Jr. HS or HS, but I was witness to a lot more hassling of the teachers which I would never think kids can get away with. My father was a teacher before we came to the US, and a teacher back home was a much respected position, and some of the antics I saw in school in the US would have never ever been tolerated back home.

We now have kids in elementary and Jr. HS, and I see some of the stuff they bring home, and I do question some of the thinking behind the lessons. Sometimes I get the impression that the teachers write their year’s lesson plan from the same “central” lesson plan, and they use canned teaching material. I wonder if some of the teachers are smart enough to teach our kids, but then I guess you don’t have to be an engineer or college professor to teach grade school level lessons. Now, that does not mean the kids are not learning nor that the school system is a bad one, but I don’t see some of the creativity that I saw when I was in grade school. I also see the school trying to cram an awful lot into a school year that now has shorter school days than when I was a kid. I see the kids learning things that I didn’t have to learn when I was their age, and I see a lack of concentration on the basics, penmanship and grammar. There are some advanced teaching principles used that were not used when I was in school, and in general, I think the kids are learning a lot more than I did when I was their age. BUT! Teaching appears to be more systematic these days in order to cram more into a school year….does that mean the teachers are less involved? Maybe. Does it hurt our kids? Maybe.

Could the teachers in general be better teachers? Yes of course! Could there be some bad teachers that might have lost their job if it were not for tenure. I’m sure there are. I think the mere mention of “tenure” strikes a bad chord in some folks, because it alludes to the fact that someone is protected from being easily let go for poor performance. Does it happen? Sure. Do we think that most teachers fall under that protection? I hope not. It’s a debate (is it really) that may never make anyone happy, but the story linked to in this thread is interesting, if not simply a reminder that we should be concerned with the quality of the teachers in our schools.

I don’t think we’re ever have a perfect school system….but we can’t rest.

In engineering, I see too many inadequate engineers that may be better in a different job, but the talent pool is shallow. In teaching, there appears to always be a lack of teachers…..so maybe we just have to live with the small percentage of teachers who are sub-par, and hope that there are exceptional teachers to help make up for some of the short comings at school. In our house, I hope we are also helping with the things we do. Helping our kids with their home work, dedicating reading time beyond what their teachers require or time toward creative thinking …all should count for something.

aways · 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Superman
In the olden days there were two professions into which women could go. They could be school teachers, and they could be nurses. Their husbands were the breadwinners, so these were second-income jobs.

And the pay reflected that. Additionally, ordinary women did not do this work. These were the women who were energetic, ambitious, smart, etc. Overall. So, we were paying peanuts for some top flight talent.

Have you guys noticed that these two occupations are having some growing pains in terms of compensation. They are moving closer to what wage analysts would call "equity," or equilibrium.

All of my four sisters have been school teachers at one time or another, and two are currently public school district employees. I'm not sure I've heard of any teacher in the last several years that did not have a Masters' degree or higher.

You whiners and teacher-basher/union-basher folks are not going to listen, but the truth is that if you want to have some more pure competition in the teaching field, be careful what you wish for. It's going to get spendy real fast. Teaching is not easy, and you're going to get what you pay for.

Plus, there is going to be intense competition for class seats. Education is the way out of our economic dangers. If you do away with public schools, you will have very intense competition for those private school seats, they will be more expensive than you can imagine, and only rich peoples' kids will have access. So, you'll have a permenent lower class, and a permanent upper class, and not much in the middle.

Two of my sisters are still school teachers. I out-earn them both. I have an MBA. One of them has nearly a doctorate, and the other has an impressive Masters degree from a foreign university under a rotary scholarship.

Currently, you have to go into teaching if you love teaching and are willing to sacrifice earnings. Or if you are lazy and don't want to work. I'm all for competition. It would compensate the good teachers more appropriately and eliminate the deadwood. But it will be expensive and you guys will have a brand new thing to whine about.

I agree with much of what you say, particularly with regard to the fact that teachers are underpaid. If we want more competent K-12 teachers, particularly in math and science, it's gonna cost money. I disagree on the competition issue though. With school vouchers, "provate schools" will be cropping up all over the place and supply will quickly come into equilibrium with demand. The best schools will be the most sought after, and the most expensive, but you get what you pay for in the end. As I said, if you want competent teachers, you're gonna have to pony-up $ one way or the other anyway -- public or private. Finally, your point about merit pay is misdirected. It's the teachers UNIONS that have waged a war on any kind of merit pay system.

Superman · 12-06-2005, 12:16 PM

Steve is right about a number of things. One thing is the notion that firing for poor performance happens at the drop of a hat in the private sector. We had a guy on this Forum recently whose description of his business made me think he was the kind that would just haul off and fire someone if he felt that person was not a top performer. I was thinking (and posting of course) that this is exactly the kind of company I would like to compete with. A haughty owner and a scared staff.

In reality, there is deadwood everywhere. Not every new employee turns out to be a pleasant surprize. Fire these people routinely, and your workforce will get the message. And drop their loyalty.

legion · 12-06-2005, 12:29 PM

The Department of Education should be abolished, and all federal education laws should go with it.

What we've seen over the last 30 years is a slow usurping of local control over education. Many of the things that used to be decided by districts is now decided by politicians in state capitals or in Washington. But we all know that a bunch of people who have never worked in a real job and send their children to private schools know everything about how to educate our children.

My point: Where do you think "standards and metrics" are going to come from? They will be politically motivated. They will never make it past the NEA.

stevepaa · 12-06-2005, 01:30 PM

I look forward to a day that someone proposes workable standards and metrics with pay for performance. I think most teachers would go for it. Nothing was more discouraging than knowing what my pay was going to be and there was little I could do to get an increase. And the pay was OK with the majority of teachers as they were usually women with second jobs in the family.

I think there still is substantial local control over education. It is the direct education of your child that matters most and you can make a difference there.

I agree that politicians in DC have no clue about teaching. I think a prime example is No Child Left Behind. This is like a chicken in every pot. It really is time to wake up and smell the roses. Not everyone will achieve to any standard you set. You just cannot arbitrarily cut off the bottom portion of the bell curve and shove it in the middle. There will be kids who cannot achieve to any good standard. It is what we do for them that defines us. Currently, we make believe that we can make them be achievers. It just pushes the spotlight onto schools and how they are "obviously failing". What rubbish.

K.B. · 12-06-2005, 02:37 PM

I've been a teacher for 30+ years. Finally could afford a fixerupper P-car a couple of years ago. Still fixing it up when I have time. Teaching doesn't really give as much free time as people think. I enjoy teaching and would do the same thing if I were to do it over again. The pay could be better and the respect could be higher in cases, but I still bump into somebody every now and then who I barely recognize from 20+ years ago who remembers every minute they spent in my classes. That makes it worth it.

Politics has done more to ruin education than anything else. NCLB has cost the schools more in time and paperwork than anything. Complete waste of time and effort. The second worst thing for education is the lack of respect some people have for the educational system and teachers. They are out to blame somebody for all of americas ills. Some parents don't really care if their kid is in the right or wrong they will lie to get them thru the system.

Sure we have some teachers who aren't as good as other ones. That is true in every field. Every job has its over and underachievers. We also have some teachers who spend all their effort on self marketing. They are well respected by many but they don't produce much in real results that I can see. But who am I to say. Different teachers have a different effect on different kids. There is no way to determine what kind of job any teacher is doing. Sure, it is great if the kids do well on the national or state tests, but what are the most valuable lessons of life? What real things will my students carry with them forever? You can't legislate that, you can't pay for it with money, you only hope colleges only let good people get teaching degrees.

There are a lot of things I would change about our educational system, I'm trying as hard as I can. Many others are too.

pwd72s · 12-06-2005, 03:33 PM

Anybody know of other jobs that have the right of collective bargaining AND are given tenure?

stevepaa · 12-06-2005, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by pwd72s
Anybody know of other jobs that have the right of collective bargaining AND are given tenure?

By tenure you mean to imply a job for life? That is a false premise.

K.B. · 12-06-2005, 05:27 PM

Tenure means you have to goof up big time to be fired. They can't just get rid of you because the wind is blowing the wrong way at the time. They can fire you for "just cause" no matter how long you've been there.

Our collective bargaining rights are quite limited to be exact. There are laws governing teachers specific bargaining rights in my state(MI - where unions got their start) anyway.