What an understatement. You can't even be honest.
wow. he acknowledges that tenure may need revision and you then accuse him of lying
NYC's Rubber Rooms were finally disbanded in 2010, after years of sending teachers accused of wrongdoing to these daycare centers for the duration of time it took to arduously work through the firing process, where they received full pay, ran businesses out of them, slept, did crossword puzzles, and stayed on the public school system's payroll.
notice that this was the NEGOTIATED method to keep teachers out of the classroom, while recognizing that none of those teachers assigned to report to the 'rubber room' had been determined to be guilty of anything
that approach was consistent with American values that it is wrong to punish someone without a fair hearing
let me point out that in such a negotiation the employer was sitting at the table and agreed to such a plan. where is your expressed angst against the employer for not fashioning a more reasonable, cost-effective approach?
At the time of disbanding, there were 550 teachers sucking up $30 million a year from "the children" they love so much. From 2008 to 2010, the school system was only able to dismiss three teachers for incompetence and 45 for misconduct including corporal punishment, sexual harrassment or crimes.
and that the employer was only able to document inappropriate conduct/teaching against less than 10% of those accused tells us what, exactly? to me it says there were too many teachers who were unfairly alleged to have acted inappropriately, because the employer was without the facts to support such allegations. and THAT is the very reason why tenure is important to teachers; without it, they are vulnerable to those in authority who can find no wrong doing but who express displeasure at the teachers' beliefs/opinions in a political work environment
And, of course,
that resolution did
nothing to resolve
this issue:
While the agreement may solve the thorny public relations problems for the city and the union, it does nothing to address the more costly absent teacher reserve pool, which consists of teachers who have lost their jobs because of budget cuts or when a school is shut down for poor performance, but have not been accused of incompetence or wrongdoing. Those teachers, who number about 1,100, do not have permanent classroom jobs but draw full salaries; the city spends roughly $100 million annually on the pool.
and that the employer has a pool of employees - whose only action was to be well performing - it has contracted to pay, but no positions to place them in, why is that the blame of the teachers/union and not because of the employers' incompetence to enter into such a fiscally irresponsible agreement?
Well, let's start with vouchers. I actually think that says it all.
why would the teachers be supportive of vouchers? there is a finite budget for education. every dollar sent to a private contractor is a dollar less available to the public education system
vouchers will only provide a taxpayer subsidy to those affluent parents who can now afford to send their kids to private schools. it is but another transfer of tax benefits from the working person to the elite
If they wanted to help students, they would clearly demonstrate that by bargaining at the table for them.
that is not the purpose of the union. its fiduciary responsibility - one required by federal law - is to represent the employees. the teachers. now, of course, when the desires of the teachers aligns with the needs of the students, that strengthens the union's/teachers' argument. but make no mistake, the union is representing the interests of the teachers ... its purpose is NOT to represent the interests of the students. the education department receives taxpayer money to do that
They would present an evaluation system.
what makes you believe they do not do this
the problem is, an effective evaluation system requires work on the part of the administrators. it is they who want an evaluation system that places a premium on easiness rather than accuracy
They would insist on policing themselves.
what makes you believe that they do not now do this
their authority is limited, but be assured, most teachers know who the weak links are in their group. just as i would bet no one here defends co-workers who do not pull their own weight, that is also true of teachers
but let's face the facts. there is a defined mechanism to get rid of poorly performing teachers. but management is too lazy to follow that protocol. it is easier for them to ignore the problem and allow the inferior teachers to inflict themselves on another class of students
in short, your anger is misplaced. the persons who are allowing weak teachers to remain in the class rooms are education managers. the union cannot defend the indefensible (tho by law, they must attempt to represent them, too); management needs to get off its ass and actually follow the procedure to document the lousy teachers' performance record so that they can either be re-trained to become fully performing or they can be forced to do something other than teach
and you have provided the evidence to show why i am correct in this damnation of education management. less than 10% of the accused teachers assigned to the rubber room were actually found to be problematic teachers ... that is an indictment of the quality of school management
I don't blame teachers. I blame the teachers' unions.
and you betray your ignorance of unions. the unions are the employees they represent. by federal law the employees are required to conduct democratic elections to elect their union leadership
They are greedy pigs interested only in making sure they promote divisiveness between teachers and the school system to protect their own jobs.
that ignorance of unionization appears once again
those 'greedy pigs' you castigate are our educators, who are performing their fiduciary responsibility required under law: they are representing the interests of the teachers who elected them to do so
And, most of all, they would recognize and respect that CPS is out of money.
when you have no money to buy something, do you then go shopping to purchase stuff you cannot afford? that is what the chicago schools did. they are wanting the teachers to work more hours for zero additional pay. what would you or anyone else on this board think if your own employer wanted you to expand your work schedule but offered you no additional money for that additional work?
my guess is, if you had a union, you would RUN to your rep and insist that he do something to address that inequity
and if you are like most represented employees, you would then go behind his back and complain that he did not do enough