Senate votes to allow firing of tenured teachers

[tonysam]

Another effort to gut traditional teacher protections in order to receive Arne's blackmail money:


December 09, 2009 - The Michigan Senate recently voted 20-13 to authorize school districts to terminate "ineffective" teachers outside of traditional tenure rules.

"I voted yes on this because it's a lynch pin to the Michigan application for $400 million in federal "Race to the Top" program, which has instructions to insure there are reforms made," said state Sen. Nancy Cassis (R- Commerce, Milford, Highland, White Lake, West Bloomfield, Orchard Lake, Wixom, Walled Lake, Wolverine Lake). "This piece goes to teachers who are ineffective, incompetent, or otherwise unable to get their student to perform up to expectations on many levels."

Senate Bill 638 gives teachers within districts rules and regulations in regards to discharges and demotions, and provides a probationary period. It also protects them when they need to take a leave of absence or choose to resign from their teaching position.


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Teachers and their unions sit back and take this shit.

[izquierdista]

1. Backlash when you don't police your own

When any union allows its members a free pass, you can expect reactions like this. Just like with crooked cops and quack doctors, there probably are bonehead teachers who need to be weeded out. Better for your own group to make sure their members are up to snuff than to wait until the wrath of the public is aroused. Then it is too late to prevent overreactions that end up hurting the average worker too.

[tonysam]

2. It should be difficult as hell to get rid of teachers.

It's not like working in a business. Revolving door teachers undercut teacher morale and disrupt students' ability to learn.

Who labels teachers "incompetent" or "ineffective"? Administrators, meaning principals, who are never held accountable for their actions and are not closely supervised. They can do whatever the hell they want to teachers. Contrary to lies in the media about how hard it is to get rid of teachers, it is laughably easy, and teachers, being low-paid, have a hard time fighting these districts in court since districts will typically drag out a lawsuit for as long as ten years in order to get the fired teacher to settle for a pittance.

Meanwhile administrators have IRONCLAD job security. It is almost impossible to fire a principal or higher-up.

[izquierdista]

3. That's because they took it over

There was a time when the principal was called that because he was the principal teacher that everyone respected, not because he was a paper pusher with more education courses under his belt. The curse of upper managers looking out only for themselves and screwing the employees isn't restricted to for-profit business, it has hit the school system too. If unions were stronger and was doing their job, they would be running the show, and there wouldn't even BE school administrators, as the union would have those jobs sewn up as well.

This business of "schools should be run as businesses" is a particularly hideous notion, as education deals with an intangible, knowledge, not shoes or vitamins or automobiles. Capitalism has let the insurance companies make a mess out of health care, and running education according to capitalist principles will ruin it too.

[Dinger]

5. So Do You Think Teachers Are "paper pushers with more education courses under their belts"?

Just curious.

[Catshrink]

4. Exactly: who labels teachers incompetent?

I worry about helicopter parents who think their kid can do no wrong. Or whose lazy kid did no work during a semester and squeaks by with a D- -- yet thinks that because the kid always had As & Bs before he should be rewarded just for using up oxygen in the room.

I once had a student accuse me of using some pretty nasty terms to describe some other students -- she told the girls I'd called them that, the girls told their parents, the parents called the principal, and before I knew it I was in a meeting with the union rep wondering what the hell happened and why. Once I heard what I had allegedly said -- and who was accusing me of it -- I asked the administrator what date I had taken the accuser's cell phone away (like we're supposed to). Ah-ha! It was her "third strike" meaning she wasn't allowed to have her phone with her during the school day. She was pissed and so just made it up -- and the adults saw through it once they put two and two together. If my admins hadn't investigated and given me a chance to respond, who knows what would have happened to my job?

That's one reason why I join the union and a big reason why I'm so leery of charter schools: there are no protections for teachers in charter schools and kids can, and do, make shit up. Parents can be vocal and very unrealistic and emotional about their kids -- especially toward the teacher who won't take the crap some kids dish out and who actually makes the kids think. Thankfully, most of my kids' parents are reasonable people -- but I've had a few through the years that are real winners.

[erinlough]

6. The idea that members get a free pass is BS

I have even participated in our union filing a grievance against one of our own members. Teachers have always been able to be fired and some have been in my district. What does it take? A hard working administrator who follows up and follows the due process set forth in the contract. You are not right that it is something that can't be done, I have seen it done rightly. What the contract I work under has prevented from happening is firing arbitrarily, which is what this new law will allow.

[tonysam]

7. A "hard-working" administrator doesn't have to follow up and follow due process

There might be a tiny few administrators who follow the book, but they are few and far between. My principal didn't know shit what she was doing. She had never even disciplined an employee before, and she had been a principal for five or six years at this particular school. She fired me violating not only the union contract, but also state and federal law. And she did it because H.R. pressured to do it, H.R. not realizing she didn't at all follow the law. Neither did it and both committed criminal acts in order to cover her butt in the termination hearing, a joke, by the way, as teachers almost never win these kangaroo hearings, so now I have to find an attorney to take my case and sue the district's ass.

[erinlough]

8. My union dues cover a lawyer if I am unjustly accused

have you checked to see if you are covered? Why didn't your Union Rep go with you in to see your Principal. I must go at least once a month, all administrators know they should let me know if they are disciplining, for their protection and for the teacher's as well. My job is to make sure everyone is following the due process. If your union doesn't work this way it is useful. Even my Superintendent said he thinks it is a good idea.

[tonysam]

9. It's way too late for that. This was a year-and-a-half ago.

After the phony investigative hearing, this stupid woman called me in for a meeting supposedly for my annual evaluation, but instead she shoved under my nose the recommendation for dismissal, without any witnesses present. I believe she fired me to get that bastard assistant superintendent of human resources off her back, even though it was total violation of Nevada state law regarding progressive discipline. Furthermore, I was supposed to be on a plan of assistance (long story about that) but she never did one damned thing as required by Nevada law. In addition, she fired me because I was not allowed to amend my FMLA form when I got a relapse of my illness--she told me in the investigative hearing I couldn't do it--clearly illegal there. The union's executive director was as worthless a human being as any as I have ever encountered. She was on the TAKE with the district. After the hearing with the superintendent, wherein the H.R. guy, the district's lawyer, the superintendent, and the rest of us, found out the truth I hadn't faked my illness, and when this H.R. bastard found out this principal didn't do one damned thing she was supposed to, what does he do? He BRIBES this union executive director to take a job working for the district, so that I would have NO witnesses at all at my kangaroo hearing months later. I had union attorneys; they were worthless. I wasn't allowed witnesses for my side, perjury was brazen by the principal and my so-called mentor, documents were altered or outdated ones were included in order to deceive the hearing officer. And of course, I am now without a job and that filthy principal is still there when she should have lost her job.

The union contract, by the way, specifically said that in the case of unexcused absences, the school board was supposed to release a teacher as "abandonment of position," but the district NEVER claimed that, and in fact my illness was NEVER disputed. She wasn't supposed to fire me at all. I should have been allowed to amend my FMLA forms to cover the dates for the second series of absences.

[erinlough]

10. I'm sorry that happened to you.

I'm unfamiliar with your state's union. It sounds like they could use some work. Good luck with your appeal.

[tonysam]

11. That's putting it mildly. The union is very corrupt, basically

a subsidiary of the district. What good is it to spend $600 or $700 a year just so they can go out of their way to defend an ADMINISTRATOR and leave a teacher out in the cold?

I am currently looking for an outside attorney, and I hope I can get one before the statute of limitations runs out. I believe I would get a pretty good settlement out of the district.

[Hannah Bell]

12. to pick off the rabble-rousers. standard operating procedure when busting unions.

to be able to take out people who might be able to rally people around them to fight back.