SfGate: In search of problem teachers
Louis Freedberg of The Chron makes an excellent point about Proposition 74, What's the point? In search of problem teachers
My first reaction when I read the full text of the proposition was, is this it? I even looked up the voluminous Ed Code that it amends to see the change in context.
There is nothing to it.
If there is a problem with teacher performance and teacher management, it will take far bigger changes than changing the number '2' to '5' in a few paragraphs burred way, way deep in the multi-phone-book sized monument to lawyerlyness that is the Ed Code.
What we have is mere grandstanding for the camera. Arnold is taking on the teachers! Those powerful, pampered, union, left winger teachers. Take that! Conan raises the pelt of the sacrificial victim.
The real problem is not getting rid of bad teachers. The real problem is retaining the good ones. Far too many teachers leave the profession too soon. Maybe they don't get the support they need when they are new. Maybe its the money / cost of living. The problem is retention, and training, and support—the problem is not deadwood.
Besides, if there is a teacher management problem, its found in the levels of bureaucracy and red tape that sometimes tie the hands of administrators. But this proposition does nothing about that—at least nothing effective. Instead of dealing with the red tape, Prop 74 just makes it easier to run young teachers out of the biz.
What a stupid idea. What a sham of an initiative.
What puzzles me is that neither he nor his allies have been able to come up with any meaningful data to support his contention that there are so many bad public-school teachers out there that he needed to call a special election—at a cost of at least $45 million to the taxpayer—to deal with it.[...]
Schwarzenegger achieved his fame from playing larger-than life, wildly exaggerated movie characters. He seems to have introduced some of those same characteristics into state politics by vastly exaggerating the problem of unqualified teachers.
For months, I've been looking for large numbers of problem teachers that Schwarzenegger says are dragging down the academic performance of our children. Maybe they are out there somewhere, and I just haven't found them. Governor, can you help?
My first reaction when I read the full text of the proposition was, is this it? I even looked up the voluminous Ed Code that it amends to see the change in context.
There is nothing to it.
If there is a problem with teacher performance and teacher management, it will take far bigger changes than changing the number '2' to '5' in a few paragraphs burred way, way deep in the multi-phone-book sized monument to lawyerlyness that is the Ed Code.
What we have is mere grandstanding for the camera. Arnold is taking on the teachers! Those powerful, pampered, union, left winger teachers. Take that! Conan raises the pelt of the sacrificial victim.
The real problem is not getting rid of bad teachers. The real problem is retaining the good ones. Far too many teachers leave the profession too soon. Maybe they don't get the support they need when they are new. Maybe its the money / cost of living. The problem is retention, and training, and support—the problem is not deadwood.
Besides, if there is a teacher management problem, its found in the levels of bureaucracy and red tape that sometimes tie the hands of administrators. But this proposition does nothing about that—at least nothing effective. Instead of dealing with the red tape, Prop 74 just makes it easier to run young teachers out of the biz.
What a stupid idea. What a sham of an initiative.
Labels: SFUSD Politics, Special Education
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home