Something that I've always wondered is, in this country when we hear of someone doing a bad job at their job are first reaction or at least one of the first is to fire them with the logic that they should be in a career they actually succeed. It seems for teachers though it's the exact opposite, we want to give them every luxury and affordability before even considering firing them. Why is this? Why is this afforded to teachers but not other groups? Actually I see the same logic with military jobs and police, is there something about public service jobs that just make us more forgiving?
The fact that their pay isn't that great and is coupled with a stupidly massive amount of unpaid overtime?
Honestly, sacking any teachers right now is probably a bad idea. There is the very real possibility that they simply will not be replaced and that existing teachers would be expected to pick up the slack, just like in every other industry in America right now. This probably would end up with more poorly performing teachers and have a worse overall effect on the children. Most states are running in the red right now I believe, with Tea Party wackaloons gaining ground (or at least being very vocal) I wouldn't be surprised if those in charge would end up viewing saving money by cutting employees and thus satiating the nutters (and potentially safeguarding their career) as a very tempting prospect.
In my county at present it's the opposite. There are tons of teachers out there who've lost positions due to units being cut. Education majors just a few years ago were basically told 'oh yeah you've got a job almost guaranteed' because just that few short years ago they were scraping up every vaguely qualified individual they could to cover the number of students needed. That's certainly not the case anymore.
Wing Commander MAD wrote:Honestly, sacking any teachers right now is probably a bad idea. There is the very real possibility that they simply will not be replaced and that existing teachers would be expected to pick up the slack, just like in every other industry in America right now. This probably would end up with more poorly performing teachers and have a worse overall effect on the children. Most states are running in the red right now I believe, with Tea Party wackaloons gaining ground (or at least being very vocal) I wouldn't be surprised if those in charge would end up viewing saving money by cutting employees and thus satiating the nutters (and potentially safeguarding their career) as a very tempting prospect.
Most school districts, and their budgets, are administered at a local level, so it's not like the state is going to rub its palms together and declare a hiring freeze for all school districts; in most cases I don't believe they would have the authority to do that.
Let's say the school district fires several teachers for incompetence. Your concern is that the district would not hire replacements for those positions. But if those teachers weren't incompetent, they wouldn't have been fired, so presumably the district has sufficient money to employ that many teachers - so why wouldn't they replace those teachers? What else do you think they would spend the money on? The overwhelming majority of a school district's budget will tend to be salaries.
"There is no "taboo" on using nuclear weapons." -Julhelm
What is Project Zohar? "On a serious note (well not really) I did sometimes jump in and rate nBSG episodes a '5' before the episode even aired or I saw it."- RogueIce explaining that episode ratings on SDN tv show threads are bunk
Good point I forgot about that, and I suppose that's good to hear, at least in this instance. That said, I definitely could see Tea Party folks seeing the system limping along with fewer teachers and saying everything is fine, despite the reality. They then conclude that whatever taxes are specifically used to fund schools can be cut back, and potentially succeed in doing so. Is that a possibility? You know their usual habit of finding imaginary excesses in government spending of everything not military. Also, aren't local level positions what the Tea Party has the best chance of actually winning? Granted, in theory Tea Partiers should be more open to local taxes and the like, but I honestly wouldn't trust them to find their own noses with a mirror, let alone maintain logical consistency between what they preach and what they would actually do.
U-235, you work in IT in a school district IIRC, so I'll defer to your doubtlessly superior knowledge on the matter. I certainly hope these concerns are unfounded, and that my sense of cynicism is simply way too overly developed.
Hillary wrote:
With the greatest respect, I'm not sure your post has much more thought attached to it. Are there THAT many unemployed teachers out there? Even if there are, you'd think that the ones who can't get jobs as things stand are likely to be just as bad, if not worse, than those you just sacked.
Surely it would be better to try and improve the failing teachers rather than simply kicking them out. That is what a responsible employer would do for its underachieving staff - in the UK the employer would be legally obliged to do so.
At least in the current US economic crisis it would be a viable strategy because of the huge overproduction of people with Bachelor's of Education degrees... And lots of desperate liberal arts people who can't get jobs who could be provided fast-track teacher certification if meeting certain evaluation standards. In short, the hiring pool at least in the short term would allow us to clear out some dead wood. And I wasn't endorsing Lagmonster's proposal, just observing that the criticism of it was absurdly simplistic. Your objections interrelate with things rather far afield from that.
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Hillary wrote:
With the greatest respect, I'm not sure your post has much more thought attached to it. Are there THAT many unemployed teachers out there? Even if there are, you'd think that the ones who can't get jobs as things stand are likely to be just as bad, if not worse, than those you just sacked.
Surely it would be better to try and improve the failing teachers rather than simply kicking them out. That is what a responsible employer would do for its underachieving staff - in the UK the employer would be legally obliged to do so.
At least in the current US economic crisis it would be a viable strategy because of the huge overproduction of people with Bachelor's of Education degrees... And lots of desperate liberal arts people who can't get jobs who could be provided fast-track teacher certification if meeting certain evaluation standards. In short, the hiring pool at least in the short term would allow us to clear out some dead wood. And I wasn't endorsing Lagmonster's proposal, just observing that the criticism of it was absurdly simplistic. Your objections interrelate with things rather far afield from that.
Fair enough. I misunderstood your post and apologise.
