tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2790809561264810693.post2639854375161440161..comments2023-11-07T06:56:59.563-05:00Comments on Ann Arbor Schools Musings: Guest Post: Guns First, and That's Great! What's Next for Activists?Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10531344380743742801noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2790809561264810693.post-71006198925232235062015-04-26T17:10:36.941-04:002015-04-26T17:10:36.941-04:00I'd be happy if we could start with getting ri...I'd be happy if we could start with getting rid of *poor* (not mediocre) teachers [and principals]. There are many fewer poor teachers, and yet I have met several who are allowed to continue to teach. I don't think tenure is the issue with poor teachers. I think the issue is that principals and other administrators have to document, document, document. Many of them are not willing to do that; sometimes the administration does not really support them in doing that; and often they have little or no training in how to document. There is a reason that in other large companies, the human resources department really helps to back people up. <br /> <br />When we talk about mediocre teachers, we are talking about a much wider diversity of teachers, and it is a bit more complicated. Teachers are mediocre for a number of different reasons, and the solutions are not always the same. Here are a few reasons that I have seen:<br />--teacher is himself/herself sick, or has a family member who is sick [in this case, the year is likely to be mediocre, but the teacher may otherwise be a very good teacher--encouraging teachers to use the Family and Medical Leave Act (or a year's leave) is a good thing, but it may not solve the problem for the students, who have already had a partially disrupted year]<br />--new teacher--may or may not just need support<br />--teacher recently switched subjects (may have been certified in English and French but hasn't actually taught French for several years) or age groups (certified K-8 but has been teaching middle school and moving down to second grade is a shock). Here the support may be needed in subject matter or techniques.<br />--teacher is burned out--may have at one point been a good teacher--I have seen a lot of teachers in this situation. I think they should be encouraged to find something else to do! [There is a reason that this post has been popular: http://a2schoolsmuse.blogspot.com/2009/04/letter-to-burned-out-teachers.html#.VT1R761VhHw] That might mean moving into administration, or out of the school system.<br />--teacher has not mastered classroom management--again, support can be given.<br /><br />Teaching is no different from any other profession; there are excellent performers, poor performers, and adequate performers. When we say "mediocre" are we saying that they are adequate but not great, or not adequate? That's where the discernment needs to happen, and if the answer is: not adequate, we need to be able to say why, and whether that is correctable. And principals are a key linchpin in dealing with this issue. Too often they just ignore it.<br /><br />I can say that I always thought I would like middle school teaching, and that I would be an excellent middle school teacher. After doing my student teaching in middle school, I concluded that I liked the age group but felt if I was going to teach middle school I would move fairly quickly from ok to excellent and then to mediocre--say over a period of 6 years. I figured it would take a couple of years to get up to speed in terms of classroom management and materials, and that a few years after that I would get very bored of the materials (because really there is a limit to how many times I could enjoy teaching Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl), and out of boredom, probably slide into mediocrity. That's just me...for some teachers, the kids themselves are enough change.<br /><br />Ruthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06830838540410394430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2790809561264810693.post-6453482711953739432015-04-25T07:32:53.393-04:002015-04-25T07:32:53.393-04:00Thanks for the comment Pete. I do believe that it...Thanks for the comment Pete. I do believe that it is challenging to get rid of a teacher once he/she has made it to tenure. While I am not opposed to tenure, I think that you will find that exceptional teachers are frustrated about working with mediocre or poor teachers. This isn't to say that those mediocre teachers are not caring individuals who mean well - often I feel that there are individuals who do care about students and kids, but caring about students doesn't inherently make a person a great teacher. Even when you look at private schools (which theoretically should have an easy job getting rid of teachers since many of them are at-will employees) they don't seem to get rid of mediocre to poor teachers either.<br /><br />The larger issue is that in order to get rid of a teacher with tenure it requires administration create a paper trail - there must be documented issues with that teacher as well as documented attempts to help that teacher. As administration has more and more responsibilities, I would question whether this is a focus, or whether administration relies heavily on initial hiring interviews as a barrier to keeping out mediocre teachers (but then what about those teachers who interview well but struggle in the classroom?). Even more frustrating is that parents and families know which teachers' classrooms they do not want their students/kids in and they avoid those teachers - what ends up happening is that the exceptional teachers's classes are overloaded with students while the mediocre teachers teach less students. Administration needs to be on the poor teachers immediately and needs to actively work to observe and actively create a paper trail if necessary. A3Teachernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2790809561264810693.post-20781062020692791972015-04-24T22:27:49.948-04:002015-04-24T22:27:49.948-04:00I was struck by this phrase: "as opposed to a...I was struck by this phrase: "as opposed to allowing mediocre or poor teachers to latch onto the system and hide until it’s too late to dismiss them." I assume that this is saying "it's too late" after a teachers receive tenure. I support the concept of tenure, but I think that it's interesting that the implicit assumption in this post is that after 5 years no one can be touched. The Ann Arbor News ran a year ago indicating that only two tenured employees had been dismissed in a decade (http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/08/catching_the_bad_apples_ann_ar_1.html) -- in both cases for actions that unrelated to their abilities in the classroom.<br /><br />Again, my point isn't to attack tenure, and I understand that we live in a world where losing a teaching job is so rare that being dismissed for being below average could have devastating consequences. My point is that it's odd that the assumption is that a person's ability to do a job becomes irrelevant if someone survives 5 years. Pete Mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541722983379114302noreply@blogger.com