Comments on: If only the unions were the problem

By: EAEvans

EAEvans — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:16:03 +0000

A rigid promotion structure for professional positions isn’t about trust, nor are voluminous contracts that choreograph every move a professional makes. The fact is, unions have a legitimate role in a profession where the job description is exactly the same the day you start and when you walk out 2, 50 or 25 years later. But that role has little to do with educational practices and teaching, yet alone student learning.
Bureaucrats running our schools and union leaders are both at fault.
We need a paradigm shift–That’s what The VIVA Project http://www.vivateachers.org is here to do. We want classroom teachers to inform policies and practices that create our education system. We want public schools organized around and for classroom teaching and learning. As long as we are stuck in this endless loop about who’s more at fault and who should be more in control of the workplace–unions or bureaucrats, we are not going to bring good and great teaching to many more classrooms, so students will continue to suffer. We also won’t promote the teaching profession, and teachers will suffer as well. Let’s stop the bickering and listen to what classroom teachers have to say about their profession. Please read what they’ve written thru the VIVA Project: http://www.vivateachers.org. Their ideas are sensible, actionable and reflect their priority–teaching students.

By: sylwadlington

sylwadlington — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:29:55 +0000

One skilled teacher can effectively teach about twenty five students a day. With teaching software computers can teach more than twenty five million students a day. Computers can zero in on a learning problem from ten different directions and systemically work with a student until they exhibit an understanding of what is being taught. A human teacher cannot multitask and interact with each student with this kind of efficiency. What’s needed in education is not reform, it is acceptance of the reality that teachers are going to become room monitors. In today’s world that is reality, people in education know what needs to be done but cannot bring themselves to do it.

By: lilrups

lilrups — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:12:23 +0000

To bittercynic….
Did you vote in your last school board election? School board members are the people you (parents and taxpayers in your district) elect to represent you in a school district. Unions don’t do the hiring and firing of teachers, school boards and administrators (who are not part of the teacher’s union) do. Teacher’s in my area have a 2-3 year probation where they can be fired for wearing the wrong color shoes. What other job has a probationary period of 2-3 years? In that time administrators, parents, and school board members ought to be able to weed out most of the teachers that don’t deserve to be tenured or have seniority in the first place(that would assume physcial presence regularly in the classrooms so the administrators know what is going on during those 2-3 years). Why should the good teachers who have proven their success be left unprotected because inadequate teachers are not being weeded out initially? When districts budgets are tight some just might turn to laying off those who cost the most in wages rather than those who are good, but not great, teachers.
Also, in response to deciding what is taught, again this is not decided by the unions (at least in the districts I have taught in) it is decided by the school board with teacher and parent input. How it is taught is often left up to teachers or departments as a whole.
The bottom line here is that taxpayers in a district do make the decisions for the things you talked about through the elected school board members. That is why the school board is there! If you don’t like the decisions your school board is making then get out and vote and pay attention to who you are voting for. Stay informed when those elections roll around.

By: JeffinGenius

JeffinGenius — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:04:46 +0000

I’m a former teacher who was part of a LIFO reduction. Was I the best teacher in the school? Absolutely not, but as a young teacher, I know I brought a level of energy, enthusiasm, and flexibility that many of my veteran colleagues did not bring. Some of those veterans were clearly more concerned with collective bargaining than educating children, yet they remained and continued to do the same uninspired things year after year. As for the Teachers’ Unions, I noticed that too large a chunk of my hefty dues seemed to be going to campaign contributions and not to anything that directly helped students.

By: smalera

smalera — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 05:56:10 +0000

Editor’s Note: Below is a response to comments by the author of this post, Deborah Meier.

I had only 1,000 words–so I didn’t answer everything. But LIFO has nothing to do with keeping bad teachers over good ones. If principals are doing their job bad teachers are people who have been and can be fired with or without tenure or LIFO–ad believe me, many are. (Some are convinced to resign–as is the case in many other jobs.) Re: poverty. Many studies suggest that poverty hurts most when it’s “relative” poverty. The USA not only has more poverty but the gap is greater. When we talk free vs reduced lunch we also obfuscate the difference between low income and serious deep poverty–and confuse ourselves about who is serving which group. Both categories are growing, as the gap between top and bottom becomes a chasm. And social mobility in the US also is comparatively low!!! It’s not a climate that motivates those left behind. And schools alone won’t solve it. But schools can make things better, can open up children to potential pleasures and possibilities that add to life–even if they don’t therefore catch up to the increasingly advantaged advantaged.
Better schools will take serious and real reform–led by teachers. Catching up to their advantaged peers will take reforms in our economy, tax structure, job market, etc.

By: BobCalder

BobCalder — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:14:19 +0000

Everybody seems to be in possession of the ONE SPECIAL VARIABLE that grants the superpower. It would make a good Harry Potter novel if it weren’t so sad that disaster looms as a result of trying to avoid a misapprehended disaster.

By: Nick-California

Nick-California — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:10:03 +0000

This assumption of the need to fire teachers that some of the above comments allude to assumes that the problem is poor teachers. Is there any credible empirical evidence that mediocre teachers is the problem? As a researcher, I have never seen any such evidence. And if it were, where magically are all the highly qualified one’s going to come from?

And teacher “tenure” dones not provide teachers with a lifetime job, it just requires that they be fired for good cause. All the principals that I know and respect tell me they can and do get rid of the teachers that do not cut it. Are these teachers “fired.”? Probably not technically, because like in almost any jobs, they “resign” when they see the writing on the wall.

And if union protections were the problem, then non union states, of which there are many, should show better students performance. Again, they do not. So, the attack on teachers union, just that, an attack on the ideas that workers should have a right to organize for their rights.

People claim they want the best and brightest in teaching. That will be hard to get if they can be fired willy nilly just because some administrator decides they don’t like them. And my experience is that it is over political or personality conflicts that most teachers get fired for–and these are often the most innovative teachers. How can teachers be expected to be innovative, if they can be fired if they do anything that any superior disapproves of? That is a real recipe for mediocrity.

If you want better teachers, the best way is to improve working conditions–study after study shows that what pushes teachers out of the field is not the low pay, but the poor working conditions. That is one place where unions can make a real difference, improving working conditions.

By: rdsathene

rdsathene — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:50:17 +0000

Thank you Professor Meier for this cogent and compassionate piece dismantling the corporate propaganda emanating out of Mr. Brill and his ilk.

You and all the educators that continually fight to achieve educational equity in a nation whose hallmarks are staggering poverty rates and institutional racism deserve nothing but admiration and support.

Brill, in supporting the neoliberalism and corporate domination of education, deserves nothing but disdain.

By: tedmlewis

tedmlewis — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:38:04 +0000

Thank you for this enlightening article. The bulk of the “reform” agenda (increased testing; larger class sizes; limited curriculum…)undermines the individual attention and creative thinking that real education improvement requires. Folks like Brill move us more towards a total test prep regimen that is bad for kids. If the “reform” characteristics are so beneficial, then why do the wealthy and elites send their kids to schools that have the exact opposite qualities?

By: TFTeacher

TFTeacher — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:15:04 +0000

To believe LIFO is bad for kids you first need to believe that veteran teachers with experience are WORSE than brand new teachers.

I requires a denial of common sense.

LIFO, or Last In, First Out, is to be used only when a school district finds itself short of money and needs a Reduction In Force (RIF) in order to stay solvent.

Laying off veterans saves more money than laying new hires, but removes the experienced teachers who are the ones who hold any school together.

LIFO is only a concern to those wishing to bust unions, like Michelle Rhee and her billionaire funders.

Who in their right mind would prefer to retain those who have yet to gain expertise as opposed to those who are already experts?

You know who? People who care more about money than children.