Posted on 06/16/2014 4:22:01 AM PDT by Kaslin
Five teacher hiring and firing laws bit the dust in California this week. In a major blow to teachers unions, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu’s ruling struck down teacher tenure, while freeing districts from spending hundreds of thousands to fire teachers and from having to fire newly-hired teachers first during layoffs.
The ruling is being applauded as a major civil rights victory, with Judge Treu comparing it with historic desegregation battle Brown v. Board of Education. Treu said both cases addressed “a student’s fundamental right to equality of the educational experience.” The data could not be clearer that the union-controlled public education monopoly disproportionately harms black and Latino students. But legal pushback on the issue puts the Democratic party in a tight spot. Party leaders can continue ignoring or thwarting reform efforts aimed at ensuring every child has access to a quality education. Or, they can jump on board the fight for equality, and alienate the teachers unions, historically among their most powerful allies. More and more Democrats are choosing the latter, putting them on the right side of history, but the wrong side of a very powerful lobby.
In his ruling Judge Treu described the evidence that California’s teacher hiring and firing laws harm poor and minority students “compelling.”
“Indeed, it shocks the conscience,” Treu wrote. At the trial, experts testified that teacher tenure laws, along with “first in, last out” protections for senior educators keep bad teachers in their jobs. And, unsurprisingly, districts usually place failing teachers in predominantly black and Hispanic schools. California’s black students are 43 percent more likely than whites to be taught by a failing teacher. Latino students are 68 percent more likely. Judge Treu ruled that this situation violates those students’ constitutional right to an equal education.
Getting stuck with even one bad teacher has devastating consequences going forward. Harvard Prof. Thomas Kane testified at the trial. He pointed out that a student assigned to a grossly ineffective math teacher loses nearly a full year of learning per year compared to a student assigned to a teacher of average effectiveness. Harvard Prof. Raj Chetty testified as well, showing research that a student with a grossly ineffective teacher for even one year loses $50,000 in lifetime earnings compared to a student assigned to an average teacher.
Many Democrats are coming around to the reality of the situation, and are standing up for poor and minority students. Politico reports that many high-profile Democrats have broken with the party on education reform agenda items such as charter schools, standardized testing, and teacher evaluation and accountability.
This follows work at the grassroots level from groups like Democrats for Education Reform and The Education Trust, two non-profits which have for years calling for reform to close the achievement gap between white and minority students, and rightly pointed to teacher union obstructionism as a prime reason so many efforts at public education reform have, until recently, gotten nowhere.
Even President Obama supports charters and accountability. His Education Secretary Arne Duncan supported the ruling. “Millions of young people in America … are disadvantaged by laws, practices and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students,” Duncan said, calling the ruling “a mandate to fix these problems.”
Rules that protect bad teachers from firing are common across the country, not just in California. According to New York’s school boards association, the average proceeding to remove even one incompetent teacher extends for 830 days and costs taxpayers $313,000. So teachers are far more likely to be moved to failing schools than fired. And these schools tend to be filled with black and Latino kids. The problem entrenches itself as those teachers stay in the system longer, where they are then protected by seniority. Not only does this keep a failing teacher in the classroom, but it makes it impossible for schools to hire new, more effective teachers.
The suit was filed by a group called Students Matter, made up of a group of 9 student plaintiffs, and backed by a Silicon Valley millionaire. They are considering similar lawsuits in Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and elsewhere.
Opposition to teacher tenure is as commonplace as it is common sense. But legislative reform has been nigh-on impossible, thanks to pressure from teachers unions on lawmakers to maintain their legal protections. It’s no surprise, then, that reform has required the courts to get involved.
However, striking down hiring and firing laws will likely improve California’s public education system by flushing out poor-quality teachers and making room for better ones. This will likely energize Democratic families frustrated by failing schools to demand action from their legislators. Then lawmakers will have to choose: Help struggling families get the same quality public education as their better-off peers, or continue protecting teachers unions from competition and accountability? It’s an uneviable position, born from a disgusting history of pandering to and prioritizing labor at the expense of society’s most vulnerable. Let’s hope they do the right thing.
When you’re talking about the inner city, you’re dealing with a population that is either apathetic, or even hostile, to learning. Even if you took good teachers and put them in such an environment, how long before they quit or give up?””
Exactly, I know a couple of people who learned valuable lessons when teaching for less than one year in an African ghetto. Black culture has little regard for education and being from the left-side of the bell curve makes it tougher. All one has to do is look at every city and country dominated by Africans. The picture is not pretty.
Actually, no. The district doesn't place them there. They end up there because the students are so difficult that teacher turn-over rate is very high. Teachers who get hired there usually can't hack it, and either manage to scramble out to a better school or -- more often -- leave teaching altogether because even working at Starbucks is preferable to being assaulted by a little gangster and learning that no one is going to do anything about it.
So those are the schools with the openings, and those are the schools who will hire anyone they can in hopes that the teacher can just keep the kids in the room for 55 minutes and nothing gets set on fire. If you think I'm kidding, be aware that I am a LAUSD teacher, and I've seen it.
I mean, yes, there are bad teachers (or rather, there are teachers who would have been fine in a classroom in Iowa 70 years ago when children had manners, parents had responsibility and control, and the principal had a big wooden paddle,) but they can't manage a classroom full of entitled minority students with crippled home-lives, no discipline, and carte blanche to do anything they want.
Not to mention that kids today all seem to have PSPs, smartphones, iPods, and are utterly addicted to them. They don’t read, they talk, or listen to music, or watch videos (horrible ones, generally.) Their heads are full of junk and junk is all they like. Even kids on foodstamps have these expensive toys (easier to buy when the government is paying for all your food.)
Trouble is, she made little money at it. The agency for which she worked had arcane rules on mileage reimbursement such as going directly to a client in a neighboring county was considered "commuting" and not reimbursable, whereas a five mile drive over to the next client was.
After a few months she landed a job at a nearby juvenile lock-up, better hourly wage, less time on the road and decent benefits. She loved the job and enjoyed seeing results when her charges were mostly runaways, teenage prostitutes and the like. The facility had such a low recidivism rate that they eventually went out of the area to keep it filled. Of course, that meant getting gang bangers and the like in from Philadelphia. As that happened, she begin to fear for her personal safety.
Eventually, she discovered that she could make more money with her degree at a call center doing customer service support, not that it has a lot to do with a social work degree, but because they wanted a college degree.
I'm pretty good at handling children but we have an autistic boy who is bigger than me and apparently has some violent "needs" sometimes. I warned my principal (who is a nice guy but a little too mellow about such things) that if that kid ever hits me, I'm getting a lawyer. I'm hoping he won't be in my classroom next year.
The primary way this ruling will be used will be to fire the 'ideologically impure' first. In a sane world, you'd expect to see layoffs for incompetence, but when was the last time you noticed a surplus of sanity in acedemia?
Yeah, the “many” struck me as funny.
Why are not ALL democrats prioritizing the rebuilding of black families over the interests of teachers’ unions?
Yeah, we knew ‘dat.
Well, sometimes they do things for reasons other than money, of course.
Vengeance, for instance. Envy. Hatred, most frequently.
Sometimes just sheer spite.
Could be both - the leftist politicians know that they need campaign contributions in order to get elected in order to have the power to cut the successful off at the knees.
Good point.
They are Equal Opportunity Destroyers.
Democrats - never good with math - have FINALLY figured out there are more people with children than there are teachers' with their greedy hands out...
Tea Party's been pushing Charter Schools and Vouchers... guess some young parents are staring to hear us. Bye-bye democrats...
Blacks and immigrants will still vote 80% for the Democrat Party.
Exhibit One:
Detroit and East St. Louis.
Many of these kids are in a horrid home and community environment which is hostile to education. Replacing a teacher is not going to help them nearly as much as addressing the home environment, the anti-education culture, and the social promotion practices of the lower primary grades.
...of course this is true, and it is the only thing that holds back the verbal tirades I used to unleash on teachers that I came across...it would have been well if I hadn’t run my mouth so much at one time, but, well, that’s that...
...my only teaching experience was Catholic CCD, which I did for two years, and gladly quit...naturally, I did it for free, but even if I’d been remunerated, I’d have left...other people’s sassy children hold no charm for me...all that being said, I believe every parishioner in a modern Catholic church should be required to do a two year stint in CCD...it would open some eyes...
Some place can do 1/4 or 1/3.
Try for 3/8 and you’ll GET 1/2.
I can get it for you wholesale...
Not that it matters to the rats as long as the vote rat party
Wasn't that why the Dems pushed so hard for "motor voter"? A lot of states give them driver licenses and magically they're on the voter rolls....
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