AJC teacher quality series: Georgia’s Fair Dismissal Law makes it costly to fire problem educators
Today’s installment of the AJC series on teacher quality in the Sunday AJC concentrates on teacher job protections and the obstacles to firing problem teachers.
I have found great disagreement among education leaders on how hard it is to remove an ineffective or problem teacher from the classroom. Some school chiefs tell me it is a matter of careful documentation and can be done, while others say it’s a major undertaking that saps all their time and energy and still ends up in court battles.
In the fifth entry in the ongoing AJC teacher quality series, reporters describe a recent tribunal hearing to fire an Atlanta teacher for incompetence and insubordination: Located at the district’s headquarters, the hearing room is staged like a traditional courtroom: In front sits a hearing officer, paid for by the district to oversee the proceedings. To the officer’s right: three tribunal members, designated by the school board, who in Atlanta can each bill up to $150 a day, plus expenses. To the officer’s left, a court stenographer who typically charges $100 a day plus $7 per transcript page. And facing the officer and tribunal sits the school district’s attorney, behind stacks of papers that hint at the hours spent investigating the case.
The AJC is making this occasional series on teacher quality available only to subscribers. You can read today’s full article by picking up a copy of Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution or logging on to the paper’s iPad app. Here is a link to the AJC digital options, including an E-subscription, which gives you the actual paper online.
Here is a link to our Part 1 discussion here on the blog.
Here is a link to our Part 2 discussion.
Here is a link to our Part 3 discussion:
Here is a link to our Part 4 discussion:
And here are some findings from today’s installment of the teacher quality series:
–The Atlanta cheating scandal is shining a spotlight on teacher job protections, which were abolished in 2000 under then-Gov. Roy Barnes but restored three years later by his successor, Gov. Sonny Perdue.
–Atlanta taxpayers are spending $1 million a month to keep about 130 educators named in the report on paid leave while the district prepares legal cases needed to fire them. The school district expects to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars more in legal fees. That’s because schools must build legal cases against teachers with three or more years of experience, who can only be let go for eight allowable reasons. Teachers can appeal their firing all the way to the state Supreme Court.
–Supporters of the law say teachers need protection against unwarranted accusations or angry parents, or from the political maneuvering of meddling school board members. But critics say the laws are an impediment to Georgia’s attempt to improve the quality of the teaching workforce. As the pressure to improve test scores increases, they argue, so must the flexibility to remove bad teachers.
–The time and financial commitment required to fire a teacher in Georgia means only a small number of teachers in metro Atlanta districts - less than 1 percent of the workforce – are let go in any given year.
–It often takes a year to build a case against a teacher for low performance, but by law the case usually can’t include actions from previous school years. In other words, once a teacher signs a contract for the new school year, problems from the past can’t be used as evidence to fire them.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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164 comments Add your comment
V for Vendetta
October 9th, 2011
12:43 pm
Maureen,
Though I’ve said many times before that we all know who the bad teachers are and they should be quickly fired, much of what these blog posters say is true. The good teachers–the ones who truly care and want to create a positive learning environment for students–are often the ones hushed or targeted by spineless administration because they cause trouble. In this case, by “cause trouble,” I mean they question the policies and practices of their schools and counties when they are not in the best interest of student learning. Consider some of the state’s biggest districts: Cobb, Dekalb, Gwinnett, North Fulton, etc. For every one story you hear about someone standing up against a policy that doesn’t benefit students, there are probably ten other teachers who were silenced or threatened.
After all, even troublesome, cantankerous people such as myself have a family to feed.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
October 9th, 2011
12:48 pm
Are Georgia school boards paying their attorneys more than they’re worth? The Richmond County Board of Education and the Columbia County Board of Education combined to pay the firm of Fletcher, Harley and Fletcher over $800K last fiscal year. What did the RCBOE and the CCBOE receive for more than three-quarters of a million dollars in legal fees?
And, Friends, if you think we east-central Georgians are the only taxpayers being hosed through exorbitant legal fees, send your local BOE an FOI request for information about how much your local board paid its school board attorney last fiscal year? You won’t be pleasantly surprised, IF you receive a response.
Who Cares
October 9th, 2011
12:53 pm
Seriously? We start teachers at 30K…oh, and a few days laid off (furloughed)…then we bit4h and moan about the profession. You get what you pay for, Atlanta. $6000 more for teachers than we pay garbage men…and yet we expect miracles…teachers in Ga don’t have unions, so whose fault is it that they can’t be fired…who wants that crappy job anyway…I don’t see Maureen or anyone else knocking down the doors of the profession…I wonder who taught Maureen how to read and write?
Katz
October 9th, 2011
12:57 pm
It’s time to do away with professional administrators. Teachers should be allowed to draft administrators from their ranks.
One way to do this would be an annual draft for a two year term. This allows for a year of transition. Restricting individuals to one administrative term every five years will maintain the primary focus on teaching.
This approach has worked well in other government agencies.
Dr. John Trotter
October 9th, 2011
12:57 pm
You can read my take on the possibility of eliminating due process rights for teachers and my reaction to this asinine move at my personal blog >>>
http://www.georgiateachersspeakout.com
Dr. Craig: You are right…school board attorneys (or, school board pimps) are making bundles of greenbacks keeping litigation going on in the school systems. Hourly billing, baby hourly billing! Their bills and what the school systems pay them are subject to the Georiga Open Records Law. You can have lots of fun requesting these documents. I may do so soon, but I have been so busy lately.
School Letdown
October 9th, 2011
1:04 pm
Administrator retailiation is not a joke anymore it is real. They get rid of teachers that will speak up especially if they don’t have tenure. I agee with all the articles. I am an educator myself and I really don’t know what is going to happen to education. I feel bad for students because some of them are really getting lousy teachers.
Burroughston Broch
October 9th, 2011
1:21 pm
@ It’s what Maureen wanted et al
While you whine about administrators, remember that every one of them used to be a classroom teacher. Every one of them looked at the ed biz system and realized the way to make more money and do less work (also known as gaming the system) was to get into administration. They might not be the brightest, but they are the most opportunistic.
Once they get into administration, their career strategy changes. As classroom teachers, the only way they could earn more money was longer years of service and a higher degree. As administrators, they become self-promoters, able to rise up the ladder in the ed biz. Self-promoters have their self interest as their prime focus and everything else is secondary. It’s akin to a politician running for election.
The problem is that the entire system stinks. The classroom teachers aren’t blameless, and neither are the administrators. They all want to blame someone else.
3rd Grade Teacher
October 9th, 2011
1:22 pm
This whole article is a joke. Period
Ken
October 9th, 2011
1:23 pm
WHY IS IT SO HARD TO GET RID OF A PROBLEM COLUMNIST LIKE MAUREEN DOWNEY? The AJC continues to employ 2nd rate sensationalists as ‘columnists’, who make their living by angering the largely conservative Southern population that the paper serves with their idiotic liberalistic utopian rants. Typical….let’s attack hard-working underpaid teachers and give a free pass to the parents and unmotivated students.
justbrowsing
October 9th, 2011
1:25 pm
Maureen- there are just some lousy administrators out there. The targeting and tar and feather parties they conduct in their schools are often indicative of the low level of maturity a great many, not all, of them have. The toxic aspect of it all are the teaching adults who are complicit with the nonsense. Truthfully, many of them lack a moral compass, and require more oversight than teachers.
Dr. John Trotter
October 9th, 2011
1:27 pm
Due Process protects good teachers from angry, abusive, insecure, incompetent, and vindictive administrators. There is a movement under foot to do away with due process for teachers. You will see more systematic cheating if this occurs. I suspect that the series about “Teacher Quality” by The Atlanta Journal Constitution is part of a cabal to set up the scene for eliminating due process rights for teachers in the Georgia General Assembly next year, the same rights that teachers have enjoyed since the early 1970s.
If a school system is thinking about terminating a teacher (and ruining his or her life forever), then there needs to be a rather stiff premium for doing this. There should be a hurdle in place. The truth of the matter is this: Most teachers resign before a hearing takes place. The move to do away with due process rights is just another Republican move to attempt to make public education like private enterprise. It is NOT private enterprise; it is PUBLIC education, and in PUBLIC education, the classroom educators have to attempt to educate each child sent to his or her classroom. Often times, this gargantuan undertaking has to occur within the direst of circumstances. Some children are intent on disrupting the class and causing all kinds disturbances for those children who are motivated to learn. Also, a significant number of the parents in PUBLIC education are the causes for the dysfunctionality of the children; they themselves are dysfunctional, irate, and irresponsible. On top of this, so many of the administrators these days prefer to inflict torment on the teachers instead of dealing with the structural deficiencies within the school setting and the lack of motivation of the children to learn.
To add insult to injury, a good number (I am not exaggerating) of the egotistical and abusive administrators seem to feel that their positions as administrators entitle them to have sex with whomever they want on their faculties. Shocking? Well, get over it. It happens. And, if a teacher rebuffs an administrator (and it is not always a male administrator), then her (or his) life will be a living hell from then on. Bad evaluations will ensue immediately and the mental torment and emotional toil will even be reflected in physical ailments (and sometimes premature deaths) for the innocent teachers.
And you think that I am concerned that this wicked attempt to fire an innocent teacher will cost the school system a few bucks? Get real. The school system already pays for the Hearing Officer and Tribunal Members (the same members hear cases constantly). To whom do you think that these people are loyal? Good grief. The deck is already stacked against the teachers. But, when the actions are the administrator are so obviously flagrant and egregious, then this gives the superintendent pause about allowing such dastardly actions to see the light of day. This is what protects good teachers against evil and wicked administrators. © GTSO, October 9, 2011.
Dr. John Trotter
October 9th, 2011
1:31 pm
Please forgive the typo: “But, when the actions [of] the administrator are so obviously flagrant and egregious…”
Pincipaled
October 9th, 2011
1:36 pm
Dr. Trotter.
Who protects the good administrators? The ones who stand up for the teachers and kids?
An effective building leader should be able to stand up for whAt is right also but we have had that protection stripped from us. How do we fix that?
It's what Maureen wanted
October 9th, 2011
1:39 pm
Oh but nooooooo Dr. Trotter you are so very, very, wrong.
Don’t you know, as per Maureen’s teachings, that retaliation is a “rare” occurrence?
And discipline, and the lack of support for teachers in matters of discipline, is NOT “a pressing issue”
Haven’t you learned anything since “getting schooled” by Maureen? You know she does have an expertise you might not have, having substitute taught for a year a couple of decades ago in the badlands of New Jersey.
Her street cred is such that even Jersey mobsters wet their pants in fear at the mere mention of her name.
So I hear.
Oh how many of these problems could have been avoided if we had just listened to Maureen’s counsel, and kept Beverly Hall in charge for the “stability” she provided.
Fired Counselor
October 9th, 2011
2:00 pm
It seem to me that the press has no idea about the dynamics of school, and all the administrative crap that goes on behind the scene. The teachers need to force school district to call the situation what it was which was institutionalized Administrative Bullying where the teachers get blamed, and left holdding the bag. The parents have no idea how institutionalized Administrative bullying is ran because teachers are the front line of education. http://www.watchfuleyes.ning.com it time to take a stand against administrative bullying, and do not allow all those teachers to loose their jobs unless more administrators get fired also.
Excuses, excuses
October 9th, 2011
2:09 pm
Why is everyone blaming the messenger and not speaking to the issue. I would say 10 to 15 percent of my fellow teachers don’t belong in a classroom. Why can’t we admit that and deal with as a profession instead of blaming the AJC.
And to Ken who says Republicans care about teachers, have you not noticed all the cuts to teacher pay since the Republican took over? Haven’t you read all the comments from Republicans about gutting teacher unions? Did you see what happened in Wisconsin?
Dr. John Trotter
October 9th, 2011
2:18 pm
There is no doubt that institutionalized administrative bullying takes place on a daily basis and is more prevalent in school systems than in others. It was totally out-of-control in Atlanta. You now see why MACE has had to act so thuggish when dealing with thugs. The administrative thugs know that we at MACE are not one bit afraid of them; to the contrary, they are afraid of MACE. This is what we have to do, viz., get the administrative bullies off the case of our teacher-members.
@ Principaled: I feel your pain. I really do. Administrative tenure was ended in 1995 (I believe that this was the year). I believe that this was a huge mistake made by the State. This had made administrative feel so beholden to the tyrannical superintendents. There are some good administrators out there. I have made this point many times. But, it is harder and harder for them to survive. The superintendents essentially want spineless, booger-eatin’ weasels who will do anything that they demand of them. And, of course, these weak and mealy-mouthed administrators just goose step like good Nazis.
DLink
October 9th, 2011
2:26 pm
I should probably repeat myself, as people appear hard of reading.
“Before ANYBODY should be allowed to “fire” a teacher, the teacher MUST first be allowed to “fire” individually disruptive/incapable students. End topic.”
Student success is the basic marker of a successful education system. Period. Let’s work our way up from there… When a teacher “fires” a student, it becomes the responsibility of the teacher AND the administrator over the teacher. When an administrator over-rides the teacher to allow the student to continue OR fires the teacher, it becomes the responsibility of the administrators watchdog to go back to the student which started the chain of events for good or ill. PERIOD.
ALL chains of events begin and end with the students’ education. I see idiots fussing over the bureaucracy while failing to realize or register the cause.
Teachers weren’t allowed to “fire” the student. The system failed right there. Instead, administrators demanded falsification from the teachers, who were told by their “watchdog” they can’t have students “fail” aka “be fired”. It was a top down command and it was reckless and inconsiderate of the well being of the students as a whole. Education begins in the home and with the teacher. ONLY when their is a failure should the next level up be involved.
The system is failing, not the students. The health of the student body belongs to the teachers and parents alone. Everybody else involved is simply there to verify the students’ account, teachers’ account, and parents’ account when there is a PROBLEM. Parents, teachers, AND students should be very vocal when a student is failing. When working correctly, problems are dealt with where they need to be. At the teacher level. Ideally, the teachers should only be able to be “fired” by their ‘class’, not any individual student or situation – aside from any ga laws being broken.
Administrators should be fired only by their teachers for poor reinforcement of their teachers. The watchdogs, Hall – and council, should not be fired. If you want a fair watchdog, they MUST be above reproach or discipline. Think about this, the Supreme Court of the U.S. is a forever paid position. Once there, you can only step down or be removed by… never happened, so let’s not even go there. Think about why we know we can trust them to be above reproach.
GA schools need good teachers. Students as individuals can be idiots. Students as a body know overall if they are learning. Just ask them. As a substitute teacher I’ve walked into many a classroom at every grade level. I know the teacher I’m replacing by the behavior of their class within the first two minutes of the students walking in the door by their behavior, before they realize there is a substitute in the room. I know the truth in all the classrooms I’ve been to. Student – substitute confidentiality kicks in at this point. Know that, as a substitute, I know which schools are short of supplies, whose classrooms are a creative lab, the conservative den, the lawless wild west, the rewards driven, the droll, the meager, catered to, beaten down, fastidiously studious, adventurous, inventive, quiet… I have eaten your school lunches. I have been where you are not allowed to go. I have measured all the classes I have taught. In each their own way, I’ve seen the successes and failures of the many different methods of teaching. In the end the success of the student as a body is the best reflection of the teacher when adequately supported by the Administrators overseen by a proper watchdog. It’s just teaching, and some of us are compelled, unlike others, to do so. We ’see’ it in each other, and it is reflected by the the students we’ve taught. Just ask the students (or a favored substitute teacher – off the record) how a teacher or school is doing.
NOTHING BEGINS OR ENDS WITH ADMINISTRATORS. or teachers. Look to the students for the answers. Trust me, little Johnny is more than happy to go on about what goes on in the classroom as he does at home given the right ear to listen. – a substitute, not to be taken for the real thing.
testerbill
October 9th, 2011
2:28 pm
I’ve been a teacher, and I’ve been fired. Even though I felt it was wrong, I walked away and did not fight it. Just got another teaching job elsewhere. The current system is broken and needs to be fixed. If I have a group of non-readers, the test scores of the group will not go up regardless of what I do, so basing my evaluation on test scores is ludicris.
In the business workplace you don’t have the protection that teachers and other union workers have. You can be laid off for no other reason than the boss doesn’t like you, and many are.
New York pays laid off teachers for up to three years after they are fired, and currently over 400 are collecting full pay.
HB
October 9th, 2011
2:33 pm
This is what happens when Democrats get their way. THe democrats are traitors and are always more concerned with getting benefits over teaching kids. The teachers union are traitors protecting the worst teachers and preventing good new one from being hired. THE TWO BIGGEST CONtRIBUTORS TO POOR WORKPLACE PerFORMANCE ARE TENURE AND SIZE OF RESUME AS CRITERIA FOR KEEPING YOUR JOB. WE SPEND MORE THAN ANY OTHER NATION PER CHILD> THIS IS THE FAULT OF UNIONS AND DEMOCRATS AND OUR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION TRAITOR IN THE WHITE HOUSE. BLING BLING BARY you MORON YOU TRAITOR
just another teacher..
October 9th, 2011
2:34 pm
As a teacher at an award winning school, I will receive a bad review if I do not work a 10 hour day, “volunteer” at after school/Saturday events, join after school committees, write grants for each committee and call parents on my drive home. These additional hours are required and therefore do not improve my evaluation. Most teachers receive good evaluations because they do what it is required of us. Teachers receive amazing intrinsic rewards but personally I’m exhausted, have no planning/preparation time and my students are the ones who lose if I don’t rise above this nonsense.
ER doc
October 9th, 2011
2:45 pm
Here is my take after reading this balderdash: Teachers are never to blame. It’s incompetent parents, administrators and students. Teachers don’t fail. Only students fail. Deliver teachers better students and teachers would never err. I’m going to the hospital tomorrow and informing the ER admissions staff: Give me only patients with minor injuries. No idiots who sliced off their hands with a chainsaw. I won’t lose a single patient. I’ll be a great doctor with a great record because I will only treat the healthiest patients.
It's what Maureen wanted
October 9th, 2011
2:46 pm
Let’s go back to what DLink said: If you want to REALLY improve education, what would be MOST effective.
Improving ways of holding the teacher “accountable” or ways of holding the students accountable?
DLink know the answer, as to most of us. But the problem is, holding the students accountable make us look at OURSELVES in the mirror.
And in the case of Maureen, it doesn’t pander to readers
An idea for Maureen
October 9th, 2011
2:56 pm
Maureen, why don’t you make an open records request for some of the teachers who were “dismissed” or resigned. What you may find is likely to catch your attention. In Cobb County, there are teachers who were placed on a PDP for a total of fewer of 20 days. Is this just, legal? After being railroaded and unfortunately NOT TENURED, the teachers have resigned. This is all with the then superintendent, Fred Sanderson, being made aware of the actions of the administrators. Remember, the devil is in the details. Open Records is your friend.
Richard Braswell
October 9th, 2011
3:07 pm
The issue of ‘poor results’ in the APS will not go away and approach to change will remain stagnant. That is, until, as a group the teachers out the real culprits in their midst, and the administrators that scratch holes in the soil as they ‘arrive’.
It's what Maureen wanted
October 9th, 2011
3:08 pm
HB why don’t you do some research on the Reading First program before spouting off on how much Republicans “care” about students.
As pathetic as the Democrats have been, why hasn’t the party that preaches “personal responsibility” done almost NOTHING to support teachers in matters of discipline?
Yes we expect the Democrats to be weak, ineffectual, and pathetic on that issue, but what’s the excuse for “law and order” Republicans?
HB? HB?
It's what Maureen wanted
October 9th, 2011
3:14 pm
Ok ER doc, let’s just give you a dose of your own medicine: Tell me, should your “effectiveness” be compared to that of another doctor based on the health of your patients in the ER, when the other doctor works exclusively with Olympic athletes?
We need a medic in the ER stat: Looks like we have an ER doc who just got hoisted on his own petard.(Do they really say “stat” or is that just the ones on TV?)
JL
October 9th, 2011
3:23 pm
There was no difficulty getting rid of Ashley Payne when the facebook pictures of her with a glass of wine in her hand came out. The teachers that caused a nationally-recognized cheating scandal though, those are the ones we can’t get rid of.
It's what Maureen wanted
October 9th, 2011
3:29 pm
Maybe if Ashely Payne had Fair Dismissal rights, she wouldn’t have had to have gone through that.
Hmm….
ar26pt2
October 9th, 2011
3:39 pm
We’ve got to be able to effectively eliminate bad apples. Education has enough challenges without creating its own. Good teachers need not fear (this is 95% of you). By the banter here most seem worried about subjective “unfounded” attacks from administrators. Would you then favor objective standards for performance? Or does this teaching “profession” not answer to any standard?
northatlantateacher
October 9th, 2011
3:43 pm
“It often takes a year to build a case against a teacher for low performance, but by law the case usually can’t include actions from previous school years. In other words, once a teacher signs a contract for the new school year, problems from the past can’t be used as evidence to fire them.”
That answers a lot of questions. No wonder ineffective teachers are rarely fired. There’s one in my school right now, making more money than I do.
melanie
October 9th, 2011
3:44 pm
I do not hear or see any one asking the question of what about the child? If you have a teacher that cannot teach, control a classroom, is out all the time etc..what happens to the children in that classroom? What does this type of teacher or lack there of have on the child? At what price is the child over how long & how much $ it takes to get get rid of teachers who can’t teach? Ever since the Federal Government took over the school systems they have gone down hill. We need the school system in the hands of the state, no the government. Teachers need to be fired for not doing their job plain & simple. Other people are fired for less in any other job, but by God it takes 8 bad reports before they even consider putting it up to the board. Sex between teacher/child should not only be a firing but jail time as well. I am tired of seeing teachers not doing their job that they are hired to do. I am tired of seeing teachers only working a few short years & then they are fully vested & protected by the union & they school board. It should not take this long to fire any one let alone a teacher. Our school system is in so much turmoil & people don’t understand why so many parents put their children in private schools. They will do with out just to make sure their children are getting the education they deserve & not have to worry about all the politics involved in the public schools.
Pluto
October 9th, 2011
3:44 pm
I work with incompetent teachers and dubiously qualified administrators. Who is in charge with watching the store? Are those charged with evaluating teachers qualified because they took a leadership course? Come on the whole system is flawed; I mean with the politics involved who is going to make an objective evaluation of personnel? I teach at a public school and my daughter comes to my school with me to matriculate. She has a God Awful teacher in the subject that I teach BUT he is the best of the worst. Will he be axed? NO! Admin knows the deal but is reluctant to act. Who is hurt the most? Don’t give me the patent line that it is for the kids because it is not.
MB
October 9th, 2011
3:46 pm
As I remember the case, Ashley Payne was pressured to resign quickly (to protect her teaching certificate, presumably). Likely that Barrow County residents have paid some hefty legal fees on that hasty administrative blunder!
Katz: Amen, Amen, Amen!! If administrators knew they were supervising teachers who’d likely be their boss next year – and that they’d be living by the rules they set for teachers themselves soon – would bet rules would be more reasonable and discipline more consistent.
Principaled: New principal came into the school and had the teacher in the radar in a couple of weeks. He’s following through on expectations and consequences. Sorry, but some administrators don’t “appear” weak, they ARE weak. As someone else said, some are just politicians and they just need to run for public office, not pretend they can run a school. (And central office staff need to identify and remove those weak links.)
Rural Parent
October 9th, 2011
3:54 pm
School systems use contracts to lock teachers into a no-way-out system. School systems with poor leadership, which would otherwise lose teachers over the summer to more lucrative or “better” districts, get certified personnel to sign contracts in March or April, ususally before the budget for next year is finalized; then cut their pay.
Look at many rural counties in south Georgia. Peach County teachers took an 8 day cut in their contracts (not furloughs) after they signed their contract, all coaching supplements were cut without the coaches knowing, and the contract included a clause that stipulated teachers could pay $5,000 to get out of their contract.
Talk about no way out!
Keith
October 9th, 2011
3:58 pm
Eliminate the contracts. If they’re lucky they can get on at a convenience store.
MB
October 9th, 2011
4:01 pm
How about the morale in rural counties where people see jobs created for administrators and central office folks while teachers have to sub for each other in their planning periods? It happens in our larger systems as well, but it sticks more in the craw of teachers furloughed ten days and worrying when they are sick because they’re inconveniencing their colleagues. If you can’t afford full teacher contracts or subs, how can you afford administrative personnel not paid in QBE allotments? Disgusting!
Pincipaled
October 9th, 2011
4:02 pm
MB. Believe I said that many are weak. Your new principal will back down one the CO staff and lawyers back him down. Wait and see. Our hands are tied like you wouldn’t belief in many ( not all) cases.
Sallie
October 9th, 2011
4:02 pm
In my experience bosses are likely to move too slowly to fire problem employees, not to quickly. All of the pressure from the disruption, questions from other employees our own internal hope for imporovement or compassion, ,tends to make us slow in makeing the decison to fire poor performing employees.
We do not need to further burden the system with more encumbering rules to protect poor performers.
school observer
October 9th, 2011
4:02 pm
@ principaled. You are absolutely correct. We have less job protection that the very people who we may be seeking to fire. If you are a strong leader who finds that you have a group of shiftless, lazy and barely competent teachers and you work hard to rid your school of such teachers, then you become the subject of scrutiny. The problem with schools exist at every level, teachers, principals, and the central office. The biggest problem is that school is more about being an employment agency for the county , than being the source of educational opportunity for children. It is the lack of job security that hinders many administrators from doing the right thing, Every time you work to rid the district of bad teachers , you risk your job. It takes courage, conviction and pray to work as a school administrator today. Those of you who think that teachers need protection have no idea about what goes on in schools today. You would be shocked at the immaturity and bad behavior that is displayed by college educated professional people, called teachers. Good teachers don’t need protection because they do their jobs and they do it well. If you have ever been an administrator then you know we spend too much of our time dealing with issues and problems created by unethical, mean spirited and incompetent teachers who don’t appear to like children, rather than supporting, rewarding, recognizing and encouraging the great ones.
Pincipaled
October 9th, 2011
4:04 pm
Need to add – I do agree that many who are chosen these days are just climbers with negligible leadership skills. Have to look at the supers who choose them though.
gtfanfrom1951
October 9th, 2011
4:05 pm
If YOU ARE OLD AND THEY WANT TO HIRE A YOUNGER TEACHER AT HALF THE PAY THEY WILL FORCE YOU OUT!!!!!
It's what Maureen wanted
October 9th, 2011
4:06 pm
Good teachers need not fear (this is 95% of you)
Really ar26pt2 and are you just as willing, to follow your logic, suspend the 4th Amendment to the Constitution because good citizens need not fear it, just the 5% of law breakers?
Dekalb taxpayer
October 9th, 2011
4:08 pm
If removing poor teachers is unavoidably difficult (and it may be), why isn’t more attention given to qualifications during the hiring process? On this blog I often read posts from people who claim to be teachers who do not have minimal communication skills. This is something that is necessary for any teacher—not just English teachers. Why can’t a simple reading/writing test be given to prospective teachers? Much better to weed them out beforehand.
Tired of mess
October 9th, 2011
4:09 pm
@ Dr. John Trotter,
You don’t seem to recognize that you have can have bad teachers just like you can have bad administrators. If there were no unethical, and incompetent teachers, then you would have no job. Aren’t you glad there are a lot of bad teachers out there?. Maybe you should be fair and represent the bad administrators too!
school observer
October 9th, 2011
4:17 pm
@ principaled. I agree, some administrators are lacking in skill , and if you look at the super who pushes them through, then you definitely should look at the board who hired the super. It all comes down to apathetic voters who don’t participate in school board elections. You get what you vote for!!
It's what Maureen wanted
October 9th, 2011
4:20 pm
By your logic ar26pt2 why not have a “benchmark” vote of confidence a principal should face from staff every year as good administrators would have “nothing to fear from 95%” of their staff?
school observer
October 9th, 2011
4:24 pm
@what Maureen wanted. Ashley Payne did have fair dismissal rights. She resigned.
It's what Maureen wanted
October 9th, 2011
4:28 pm
My understanding was she hadn’t taught long enough to get tenure. If that’s the case, and she resigned, she got some really bad advice.
Louise
October 9th, 2011
4:33 pm
First, most teachers I know work 12 hour days and on weekends to give this sub par performance you allege. Let’s also mention the 10 minute lunches and trying to find time to go the bathroom.
Second , let’s talk about other professionals – yes, teaching is a profession – should we blast them on the front page of the paper.
Third, I no- longer purchase the AJC for this very reason. I am weary of reading insulting articles about a profession I have given 20 years of my life to.
Try another spin — positive remarks about a profession that requires so much time and energy without the financial rewards.
Better yet ,spend a day at a school and observe the future teachers hold in their hands.