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Who Is the Best Judge of Teacher?

blackjack50

blackjack50

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With the whole "standardized test" movement being so controversial, and having gone through some good and bad teachers myself...I am wondering. As an educator...who do you think should have the final say on hiring and firing teachers?

Where should the authority rest? What standards should be met? How "objective" should they be? Where should they come from?

Personally I'm a fan of giving final say to the principle. I see that position as the boss. And their job is to hire and fire employees and make them tow the line. As such...it is their job to determine standards. And it should be the job of the administration above the principle to determine if the school is heading in the correct direction and adjust accordingly.


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blackjack50 said:
With the whole "standardized test" movement being so controversial, and having gone through some good and bad teachers myself...I am wondering. As an educator...who do you think should have the final say on hiring and firing teachers?

Where should the authority rest? What standards should be met? How "objective" should they be? Where should they come from?

Personally I'm a fan of giving final say to the principle. I see that position as the boss. And their job is to hire and fire employees and make them tow the line. As such...it is their job to determine standards. And it should be the job of the administration above the principle to determine if the school is heading in the correct direction and adjust accordingly.


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Click to expand...

The authority should rest with the unions. Once a teacher is hired, there is no accurate way to measure competency. Therefore, the union must have final say-so as to whether or not a teacher can be dismissed for nonperformance.
 
Everyone collectively acting as a market.
 
blackjack50 said:
With the whole "standardized test" movement being so controversial, and having gone through some good and bad teachers myself...I am wondering. As an educator...who do you think should have the final say on hiring and firing teachers?

Where should the authority rest? What standards should be met? How "objective" should they be? Where should they come from?

Personally I'm a fan of giving final say to the principle. I see that position as the boss. And their job is to hire and fire employees and make them tow the line. As such...it is their job to determine standards. And it should be the job of the administration above the principle to determine if the school is heading in the correct direction and adjust accordingly.


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Click to expand...

I would favor a system of evaluation which has input from all the important players - the administration particularly the most local administrator like a department head or unit head who actually works with the teacher ....... their colleagues who know them ......then the teacher themselves .......... and finally (if they are old enough) the students they teach. I found that the kids know pretty fast which teachers are good and which ones are not.
 
MaggieD said:
The authority should rest with the unions. Once a teacher is hired, there is no accurate way to measure competency. Therefore, the union must have final say-so as to whether or not a teacher can be dismissed for nonperformance.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's not gonna work out too well. In my neck of the woods there are teachers in prison for sexual abuse of students who are still receiving paychecks because the union is backing them (teachers continue receiving checks until all avenues of appeal are exhausted). This creates a ****ty situation where regardless of how much misconduct there was, teachers will always fight every legal battle (be them criminal or civil) they can to prolong their paychecks. This costs taxpayers both their salaries during this time and the legal fees. I wouldn't trust the teacher's union in my area to make the best decision for the students if their lives depended on it.

As such, I would have to say principles and school boards should have the final say in hiring/firing decisions. If they are fired for demonstrably illegal reasons, they can take it to court like every other wrongfully terminated employee.
 
MaggieD said:
The authority should rest with the unions. Once a teacher is hired, there is no accurate way to measure competency. Therefore, the union must have final say-so as to whether or not a teacher can be dismissed for nonperformance.
Click to expand...

While we might disagree regarding this, you must acknowledge that incompetency is often pretty obvious.
 
The Principal is responsible for the success or failure of his school's record of achieving educational goals.

Therefore, he should be empowered to hire a team that will work toward that success.

IMO, a pool of eligible applicants should be established by testing, and then the hiring should be left to the Principal.

As far as firing? That should follow the normal grievance process before any discharge is finalized.
 
I don't know if I'm missing some issue over in America but I don't see why this is a question. Employers decide on the hiring and firing of staff (within the relevant legal structures). For teachers that's typically going to be the people running the school (not necessarily the principal alone). If for whatever reason they're not capable of fulfilling that role, that'd be the problem to address.
 
School boards should be in charge of hiring and firing principles and principles should be in charge of hiring and firing teachers.
 
MaggieD said:
The authority should rest with the unions. Once a teacher is hired, there is no accurate way to measure competency. Therefore, the union must have final say-so as to whether or not a teacher can be dismissed for nonperformance.
Click to expand...

I'm detecting a bit of sarcasm.


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HonestJoe said:
I don't know if I'm missing some issue over in America but I don't see why this is a question. Employers decide on the hiring and firing of staff (within the relevant legal structures). For teachers that's typically going to be the people running the school (not necessarily the principal alone). If for whatever reason they're not capable of fulfilling that role, that'd be the problem to address.
Click to expand...

You would think so. But many people feel that the Unions have completely destroyed the ability of the local government (aka the people), to have their say in what happens.


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blackjack50 said:
With the whole "standardized test" movement being so controversial, and having gone through some good and bad teachers myself...I am wondering. As an educator...who do you think should have the final say on hiring and firing teachers?

Where should the authority rest? What standards should be met? How "objective" should they be? Where should they come from?

Personally I'm a fan of giving final say to the principle. I see that position as the boss. And their job is to hire and fire employees and make them tow the line. As such...it is their job to determine standards. And it should be the job of the administration above the principle to determine if the school is heading in the correct direction and adjust accordingly.


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Click to expand...

The principal is a bureaucrat. They can and in many cases are biased. I have heard of too many cases where a principal runs out of the school a person from group A, for instance... white person, a woman, etc.
 
Bodhisattva said:
The principal is a bureaucrat. They can and in many cases are biased. I have heard of too many cases where a principal runs out of the school a person from group A, for instance... white person, a woman, etc.
Click to expand...

And if the principle is failing to meet requirements set by school board and district...they should be run out of the school. The problem is that education is political. There are good and bad teachers. There are unions protecting the lazy. And then you add in all the difficult racial issues


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I don't know what the solution is, but something I've been saying since I was a teenager (ages ago) springs to mind...


Schools! Making the wonder of discovery into boring drudgery since 1699...


:(
 
CycloneWanderer said:
Yeah, that's not gonna work out too well. In my neck of the woods there are teachers in prison for sexual abuse of students who are still receiving paychecks because the union is backing them (teachers continue receiving checks until all avenues of appeal are exhausted). This creates a ****ty situation where regardless of how much misconduct there was, teachers will always fight every legal battle (be them criminal or civil) they can to prolong their paychecks. This costs taxpayers both their salaries during this time and the legal fees. I wouldn't trust the teacher's union in my area to make the best decision for the students if their lives depended on it.

As such, I would have to say principles and school boards should have the final say in hiring/firing decisions. If they are fired for demonstrably illegal reasons, they can take it to court like every other wrongfully terminated employee.
Click to expand...

My brother-in-law, no longer with us, was superintendent of the very best school system in our state. The kids who came out of that school system were well prepared for college or whatever in life they needed to face. And he did it by implementing a system that the parents/students chose the teacher they wanted for whatever subject. Word gets out who the better teachers are and the kids, and of course their parents, coveted those teachers. Any who missed out on their preferred teacher because the class was full would be assigned to the new teacher who then had a chance to make his/her reputation and earn the respect of the kids and their parents. The 'veteran' teachers who could not attract sufficient kids to justify his/her position for three years in a row would have that position eliminated.

School choice works much the same way. Schools who depend on enrollment for their funding will work much harder to keep their kids if those kids can choose where they will attend school.
 
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