

State's bad teachers rarely get fired - tokenadult
http://www.startribune.com/investigators/93201809.html

======
sgk284
Our startup (based in Seattle) was looking at ways to help analyze the
performance of teachers. It turns out that the unions lobbied for legislation
in Washington that forbids such software from being installed in the schools.

The unions don't want mediocre teachers to be found out. It's really a crappy
situation and really took us by surprise.

~~~
patio11
If the unions didn't zealously represent mediocre members, there wouldn't be
any point to having them. (There might have been decades ago when management
quite literally hired private armies to beat down their employees. Taking a
look at the private sector, we can see that non-unionized employees are
largely not beaten down by private armies and also don't come to class falling
down drunk. Unions have and will continue to zealously defend teachers who do
that.)

~~~
antidaily
Non-unionized employees can also be paid less and receive less benefits which
is great. Because that's how you find the best of the best - offer next to no
salary or benefits. It's so simple - you task these underpaid drones with
teaching a meaningless standardized test to kids who are physically and
sexually abused at home and come to school without a jacket (or breakfast or a
packed lunch). If the kids don't do well, clearly it's the teacher's fault and
they should be forced out immediately, which will be easier without union
representation. Also, to save money, it's important to threaten older,
experienced teachers with cut retirement benefits if they don't retire early
(happening in MI) so that cheaper, newer teachers can be hired in their place.
And even though all studies show that academic achievement starts at home,
don't blame the parents. Ever.

~~~
marltod
Interesting rant, however you have not explained why you think Union Teachers
are better than non union teachers at educating children? Tax payers pay taxes
so that children in their communities get a good education. Why would tax
payers pay a teacher 80k a year when there are qualified unemployeed people
willing to do the job at 40k.

~~~
antidaily
The narrative used to be that teachers were underpaid. Now, because the states
are broke and property tax revenues are lower, we're trying to squeeze
teachers by paying less and making them work more hours ... and still get kids
to do better in school. Just not sure it works that way.

I don't have any concrete facts on why unionized teachers are better, but
they're paid more, have better benefits, legal protections... so maybe that
makes them more _motivated_.

~~~
ori_b
No, more motivated would involve having a risk of losing the benefits if you
don't teach well. Rewarding... well.. nothing, simply for the sake of
rewarding breeds complacency and apathy, not motivation.

~~~
antidaily
Sounds fantastic for morale.

------
rmorrison
If you want to see an interesting perspective on education in America, I
highly recommend watching Bill Gate's TED talk (start at the 8 minute mark):

<http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/bill_gates_unplugged.html>

In summary, currently teachers are not held accountable for the quality of
their teaching due to the way their contracts are structured. Also, formulas
for teacher's pay reward experience and extra education, even though both have
been shown to be unrelated to teaching quality.

Simply throwing more money at the problem will not help, we need to rethink
the current system.

~~~
megablast
Difficult for the situation to change, if your unions are anything like ours
in Australia.

In NSW, they recently introduced a website that displays the score of
standardized tests, not at the student level but at the school level. There
wass a huge uproar by teachers, suddenly everyone can see how well they do,
they and their schools can be examined.

Due to this, they have come very close to striking at times, lots of
complaints about not being able to teach properly, at having to "teach to the
tests". There is some truth to this, but it is also a way out for the bad
teachers.

There needs to be some mechanism for recognising and removing bad teachers.
The system is setup at the moment almost as a teacher retirement plan, once
you get in, you can't get out.

------
ryanwaggoner
"This American Life" had a great segment awhile back on the Rubber Room, which
is this room in the NYC school system where teachers who are under
investigation or something get stuck. They report there instead of their
classrooms, and some of these teachers have been stuck there for years because
they can't be fired. Pretty incredible.

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/350/H...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/350/Human-Resources)

------
philwelch
More generally: Underperforming, unionized civil servants rarely get fired.

~~~
ericd
See also: MTA (Transit) in NYC. I frequently see one MTA employee doing work
and 4 watching/talking.

------
anigbrowl
People interested in this subject will probably like this forthcoming
documentary:
[http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117941947.html?categoryId=2...](http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117941947.html?categoryId=2471&cs=1)

------
jbellis
I bet if I googled hard enough I could find one of these articles for every
state in the union.

~~~
wyclif
If you do, make a list of the links, turn it into a blog post, and post it
here-- I'd upvote it.

------
nazgulnarsil
Unions are fine, monopolies are not.

When the government grants monopoly licensing powers to a union they are
virtually guaranteeing corruption, high prices, and methodological stagnation.

------
ryanhuff
Its in vogue to bash the teachers these days. In California, the teachers
unions have been more prominent in recent years in state-wide political
debates, and that seems to have had an impact on public opinion, which is
unfortunate.

Regarding Bill Gates TED-talk, he compares US and Asia test scores. I don't
see how having cheerleader style teachers can mitigate the challenges that
many children from under-performing areas are faced with nationwide. These
under-performing schools are often in poor areas, where the family educational
expectations are low, and the home-life is not conducive to educational
success. If US society placed as much emphasis on education as do Japan and
other Asian countries, US performance would be much improved. Bill Gates'
proposals are a band-aid over the more significant issue.

~~~
anamax
> Its in vogue to bash the teachers these days.

The popularity or lack thereof of something doesn't tell us whether it is
wrong.

> In California, the teachers unions have been more prominent in recent years
> in state-wide political debates, and that seems to have had an impact on
> public opinion, which is unfortunate.

How so?

Feel free to explain how CA's teachers unions have been a net positive for
society over then past 10 years.

~~~
ktsmith
I can't speak to CA, but in NV much of what the teachers union has done within
the school district simply can't be talked about due to confidentiality
clauses and other employee protection laws/regulations not to mention those
about protecting the identity and privacy of minors. I can tell you that if it
weren't for the legal protection offered by the union many good teachers would
be out of jobs, and many others would never have become teachers as these
services are often not affordable on an individual basis.

~~~
anamax
> I can't speak to CA, but in NV much of what the teachers union has done
> within the school district simply can't be talked about due to
> confidentiality clauses and other employee protection laws/regulations not
> to mention those about protecting the identity and privacy of minors.

That may be (or not), but we're talking about political activity in the open,
which has little/no relationship with protecting teachers against
administrative sanctions wrt false accusations of child abuse.

"Administrative sanctions" is key - criminal accusations ARE public.

> I can tell you that if it weren't for the legal protection offered by the
> union many good teachers would be out of jobs, and many others would never
> have become teachers as these services are often not affordable on an
> individual basis.

Interestingly enough, teachers aren't the only people accused of such
activities. And when other people are so accused, it's public.

~~~
ktsmith
> That may be (or not), but we're talking about political activity in the
> open, which has little/no relationship with protecting teachers against
> administrative sanctions wrt false accusations of child abuse. >
> "Administrative sanctions" is key - criminal accusations ARE public.

You brought up criminal actions, I did not as by default they would be public
(except when they aren't). I also said absolutely nothing about administrative
sanctions, you also added that. There are a significant number of issues in
which the teachers union is involved between teachers and administrators that
have absolutely nothing to do with "administrative sanctions" including
handling disputes between administrators and teachers, parents and teachers,
contract disputes, etc. None of those are public. Some of them have a net
positive effect because they head off civil action against the school district
which saves the district and tax payers money.

> Interestingly enough, teachers aren't the only people accused of such
> activities. And when other people are so accused, it's public.

This is actually not the case. This is true if the police are involved or an
action ends up in the courts (family court for example). If CPS is involved
with a family initially there may be zero law enforcement involvement. If that
is the case the records are not public, and would only become public should
legal action be taken against the accused or the family courts become involved
for the purpose of separating children from the family or returning a child to
a family, etc. Even in cases where legal action is taken, if no criminal
charges are filed the details of the situation are often not public as records
will be sealed to protect the minors involved.

As far as teachers being at risk, due to the amount of time that teachers are
with children, and due to district policies teachers may be at greater risk
than anyone else. An example of this is restrictions on how students can be
placed in classes. While there are special education or alternate education
facilities for some students, not all qualify or will be provided with those
services. As such students with emotional disturbance, for example, may often
end up in regular classes. In one case my wife had a student that was severely
disturbed and through the course of a school year made outlandish claims not
about my wife, but the other students and several other teachers at the
school. None of these claims had any merit, and thankfully the school was
aware of her situation. It took severe pressure from the union for the
district to reconsider their policy on student placement in these cases. Their
decision appears to have absolutely nothing to do with the risk these students
or teachers may have been exposed to, but limiting the potential liability
should the parents of one of the affected students choose to sue.

Now if you want to restrict the discussion to one: "political activity" and
two "in the open" there are still things that can be pointed to as positives.
I will bring up a current issue in my own community. For the current fiscal
year the school district is short $30 million dollars. This is going to be
handled via service cuts, the loss of about 100 teachers and some other
things. For the most part it's manageable, though unpleasant. The next fiscal
year however will be devastating to the budget and no one is talking about it
_except_ for the teachers union. It is estimated that the budget for the next
school year will be short at least $60 million and as much as $90 million.
This means that the district will lose half of its teachers, all of its
certified personnel and most or all of its aids. There will be many school
closings, and class room sizes will increase from the current 25-30 at the
primary level and 30-35 at the secondary level to as many as 45 in primary
grades and 50 in the secondary grades.

The teachers union has been trying to make this issue public, address the
state legislature, and find a solution for the last 90 days. Unfortunately
since so many people seem to despise teachers unions there has been very
little public following. Now the district has decided to admit that this is
the a real issue, that the numbers are correct, and ask teachers to try to get
the state legislature to do something about it. The school district is still
not going before the public and explaining that their children are going to
have severely diminished educational opportunities. Only the teachers union is
discussing that this can negatively impact the growth of the local populace
and the local economy. If this does actually occur (it most certainly will)
the local education system which is already 49th in per pupil spending, and
doing poorly in graduation rates will become even worse. Those are both
incentives for families to not move to the area, and for businesses to not
move or start here (lack of educated labor pool).

While teachers unions may be actively trying to do good things, for both
teachers and their students. The press tends to only cover the negative.

------
thribbler
Paying people to leave actually sounds like quite a good idea to me.

Pay people 3 months salary to leave; don't pay new employees for the first 3
months.

It's much easier to identify an underperforming existing employee than to pick
the best potential employee at interview. Not paying newbies filters out
people who aren't motivated.

~~~
ktsmith
You would get few applicants for teaching positions with no pay to start.
Teachers have to have degrees and teaching certificates which can be very
expensive and given the current state of education many teachers enter the
profession with student loans to pay off. An additional problem is that it's
becoming increasingly difficult to gain employment as a teacher due to funding
cuts and fewer teachers retiring among other factors. A result of this is that
it looks like having a masters degree will end up being a requirement for
teachers to keep their jobs, or to enter the profession. Being that teachers
pay is not comparable to other professions with similar education requirements
I don't see how this could possibly help.

------
adamc
Is this unique to teachers or just a specific instance of a general issue --
that poor employees are seldom fired?

~~~
amock
This isn't unique to teachers, it's a problem with unions.

