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0 pointsflukus7y ago0 comments

I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reassignment_centers

> Although teachers are now being charged more quickly, it still takes several years to complete the hearing process and for the arbitrator to render a decision.

So they get stood down until they've had a misconduct hearing, that seems fair, we don't want to ruin careers on allegations alone.

> In June 2012 it was revealed that the New York State Education Department had not paid its arbitrators for several years, and collectively owed them millions of dollars for cases they had completed, or were in the process of hearing. In frustration, ten of the 24 arbitrators on the New York City panel have quit, while the remaining 14 refuse to hear any testimony or issue any decisions until their back wages have been paid in full.

This is a massive administrative failure, I don't know why your blaming unions.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

ericd7y ago· 2 in thread

I'm not blaming them for the number of people in those rubber rooms or for the terrible administration of that school district. I am blaming them for how hard it is to fire a teacher the administration doesn't want, for whatever reason, to the point where new, exceptional teachers are being let go because they have to keep around older teachers with tenure who are phoning it in. That drags down the average quality of teaching in the US.

That said, I also think that good teachers should be paid much more to attract more talent, and make it a viable alternative to more careers for people who aren't willing to sacrifice their finances to teach.

EDIT: I should also note that NYC public schools are an incredibly challenging teaching environment, a lot of false accusations fly around, and I don't mean that all the teachers in the rubber rooms should be let go. I just disagree that teaching should be a tenured position.

flukusOP7y ago

> I am blaming them for how hard it is to fire a teacher the administration doesn't want, for whatever reason, to the point where new, exceptional teachers are being let go because they have to keep around older teachers with tenure who are phoning it in.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but is there any evidence that it is a huge problem and not isolated cases?

> That said, I also think that good teachers should be paid much more to attract more talent, and make it a viable alternative to more careers for people who aren't willing to sacrifice their finances to teach.

The problem is not having a way to quantify what a good teacher is. Is it the one that imparts a love of learning on there students or the one that gets better test results? Is it the one in the wealthy area or the one in the poor area where kids aren't even being fed? If the students do poorly is it the teachers fault or did a teacher in a previous year skip crucial topics?

Paying good teachers more isn't possible until you can identify good teachers.

> I just disagree that teaching should be a tenured position.

Well there I agree, it should at least be very rare. It does sound strange to me, I don't think it's a thing in my country and even in academia tenure isn't as strong.

ericd7y ago

Sadly, I've only heard anecdotal evidence from young teachers I know, and maybe some reading I've done in the past, so I don't have any sources on hand to point to, and maybe it's isolated rather than endemic.

You're right that it's hard to quantify whether someone is a good teacher or not, but I don't think it's impossible to judge. It's probably impossible to make it a simple succinct rubric, though. Maybe it's a challenge for a universal function approximator like a neural net :-)

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