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Weathergirl Goes Rogue

324
Dark_Falcon9/10/2012 7:28:53 am PDT

re: #319 Sionainn

Teachers don’t have a problem with being held accountable. What they do have a problem with is being held accountable for things that are beyond their control, and that is what most of the non-educators don’t seem to understand. There are already systems in place to get rid of rotten teachers. It does require some effort on the part of the school administrator, however. Just like in any major business, there is documentation required and progressive discipline before one can be fired. The fact is that many principals simply can’t be bothered. Additionally, there aren’t as many “bad” teachers out there as some would have us believe. It’s much easier to blame the teacher than it is to blame the parents and/or students.

My husband was part of a “turn around” school in our district. His school was deemed extremely low performing. They had to remove at least half of the staff and required the rest to reapply if they wanted to stay. He chose to stay. I find that to be a ridiculous way to go about things. Instead of pretending that replacing all of the staff will turn a school around, they should have simply switched the staff from the highest performing school with the staff from the lowest performing school and see what would happen. I could guarantee you that the students at the highest performing school would still be the highest performing and the students from the lowest performing school would still be the lowest performing.

Reply to bolded portion; Ah, but union work rules generally forbid this sort of practice, as would the middle and upper-middle class families whose children are most likely to be found in larger numbers at the highest performing schools.