States are not doing what it takes to keep good teachers and remove bad ones

Report: States doing poor job of teacher evaluation
Libby Quaid - Associated Press Writer - 1/29/2009 8:40:00

“States are not doing what it takes to keep good teachers and remove bad ones, a national study found. Results from our related poll, how would you grade your state when it comes to retaining public school teachers who are competent and removing those who are not? 80.2% of the 8498 responders gave their state a FAIL rating. 19.8% gave their state a PASS rating.”

“Only Iowa and New Mexico require any evidence that public school teachers are effective before granting them tenure, according to the review released Thursday by the National Council on Teacher Quality. "States can help districts do much more to ensure that the right teachers stay and the right teachers leave," said Kate Walsh, president of the Washington-based nonpartisan group.”

“Hiring and firing teachers is done locally in more than 14,000 school districts nationwide. But state law governs virtually every aspect of teaching, including how and when teachers obtain tenure, which protects teachers from being fired. Tenure is not a job guarantee. But it is a significant safeguard, preventing teachers from being fired without just cause or due process. Nearly every state lets public school teachers earn tenure in three years or less, the group said. In all but Iowa and New Mexico, tenure is virtually automatic, the study said.”

It is not a surprise to see this problem float to the surface. It has been a huge problem for a long time. You might ask if that is true why hasn’t anything been done to solve it? Ah, that is the question isn’t it. You can look for the simple answer; the education leaders don’t have the skill to manage behavior modification properly because they haven’t been trained in how to do it. However, while that is probably the biggest part of the problem there are other issues to be faced as well.

States have prioritized the adults working in education far ahead of the kids’ educational needs. That is, when it comes to a choice between firing a poor teacher and better serving the needs of kids, the rules are slanted to favor the adult (harming the kids).

Union contracts add more restrictions to the state regulations for firing a teacher. In some cases it can add huge costs and longer periods of time which reinforces the feeling that it isn’t worth pursuing in the minds of weak education leaders.

School boards want to keep things positive and non-controversial. This desire on their part trumps any effort to take corrective action that might cause publicity, a union complaint or lawsuit. So the kids subject to poor teaching continue to be harmed.

Superintendents are birds of a feather with the school boards and definitely don’t want to “rock the boat.”

Due to the tenure laws and union “protection” the process, even if an education leader has the skill and desire to address a problem of poor performance, can take more than a year with ease. This causes a stressful situation that most want to avoid even if the payoff is removing a poor teacher whose presence damages kids. It is easier to ignore the harm to kids than to face an angry teacher everyday for a year or more. Question: Do we pay education leaders so much because it should be an easy, stress-free job?

Teachers, even poor ones, are adept at soliciting support from their students’ parents adding to the pressure to just ignore performance problems.

The political correctness regime practiced in education makes it difficult to state the objective truth of performance. This applies to all school staff not just teachers.

Simply, the kids don’t vote and only have a voice through the adults in their lives. If those adults don’t look out for them but abdicate that responsibility, they are of little concern to the education system. This is especially true if serving them better harms the jobs or clout of any of the many too powerful education constituencies.

Now make no mistake, I am not saying that firing a poor teacher is a walk in the park. It is darned tough, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be done if the teacher’s performance is limiting the kids’ learning opportunities. In spite of the impediments to resolving these problems there are significant numbers of concerned education leaders who are motivated to solve these problems. Many are working hard to address the problem against the odds. One bit of evidence of that is the success that Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer, has had training education leaders across the nation in her SUCCEED method of addressing the problem of firing poor teachers. Her process is one that makes sure the teacher in question is “leveled with” in writing that their performance is unacceptable. Then a plan of improvement is crafted for that teacher with tight control and feedback on progress or lack of progress. An important part of the process is the complete documentation of each step. The benefit is that if the person doesn’t improve their performance and a firing occurs the likelihood of a lawsuit is minimized and the likelihood of a successful one (district loses) is extremely small. Many districts across the country have provided this training for key leaders. The trainer of a group in another state told them that they had found in working with the districts nationwide that on average a district had 17% of the teaching staff that were doing an unacceptable job. Would Colorado have a lower number? I doubt it. This is a huge problem short-circuiting the future of far too many of our kids. It must be faced and fixed.

One concern though is that even though many districts spend large sums on the training for the SUCCEED method there appears to be little action taken because of it. That is, even if you train people how to do it, it is a distasteful job to them and therefore doesn’t get done unless the board and superintendent make sure it does. But “signing up for the process” is something that ed leaders can say they have done to prove they are addressing the problem. Of course, results are what counts and those don’t change without follow through to really use the process. Perhaps the underlying biggest fallacy among ed leaders is that they have never learned that effective leadership is not a popularity contest.

Is this an acceptable situation? Absolutely not!! But until the public tells the state education bureaucracy and school districts that they won’t tolerate it, the problem will continue. And we can’t in conscience tolerate it because it harms kids, large numbers of kids. Only a groundswell of public outrage will break through the ability of educators to ignore bad news. That is, we have to make the path of least resistance the one we want them to take not the current “go along, get along” status quo.