Public School Teachers and Administrators: How should we fire them?

[Yupster]

92. I was a public school teacher for nine years (9th grade mostly)

I was one of six teachers in my department. During the entire nine year period (1981-1990) there was at least one horrible (IMO)teacher. At one point there were three.

Here's how each was handled.

One man was supposedly a very good coach for very many years but by the time I met him he had quit coaching but was still teaching in the classroom. As far as I could tell, he made very little effort to teach any subject matter. He pretty much showed films every day. The administration waited for him to retire after I taught with him for three years.

One woman was just what I'd call flighty. She was completely disorganized and frazzled. The way the administration handled her was they gave her six different classrooms to commute among, and a cart to put all her stuff on. She also tended to get the worst kids. I think they were just making her life so difficult that she would quit. She did.

One woman was/still is one of the nicest people I've ever met. She was just not a good teacher. She taught a different subject than I did and every year her students did very poorly on the end of the year test. The way the administration handled her was to transfer her into my department since we didn't have an end of year test. The result was she was still a poor teacher, but now also had no knowledge of the subject matter. She taught for another 15 years.

One man was IMO mentally unbalanced. He liked to play tricks on his students. He would tell them they could bring notes on 5x8 index cards to their tests. Then on test day, he ripped up the more standard 4x7 index cards that most of the kids brought. He wouldn't collect textbooks until the day of the final exam. Then he kept the kids who forgot theirs until Saturday and wouldn't let them take their finals until they turned in their books. This man was transferred to a different school. I think he ended up teaching driver's ed.

Your aggressive attitude of attacking people who you think are criticizing teachers is not appropriate. Everyone who has taught has seen excellent teachers, average teachers and terrible teachers, just the same as coal miners, insurance adjusters, and marine colonels. Since taxpayers pay teachers their salaries, taxpayers certainly have a right to their opinions.