My Intro to Ed professor mentioned the problem of ineffective teachers, and questioned whether we make it too difficult to get rid of bad teachers. Since there is a variation between states on the amount of unionization in teaching, we can run an experiment on whether unions prevent bad teachers from being removed, thus dragging down the profession. I believe that there's no correlation between the presence of unions and the presence of bad teachers, although I'm not sure how to find statistics that measure that. Unions aren't the only impediment to removing teachers, but they do seem to be the one most identified in political discussions of this issue. I'm pretty sure that there is a correlation between unionization and per-pupil spending.
But perhaps the most interesting approach to this question is through the sociology of the schools. How would the learning environment change if the low performing teachers were constantly aware that they could lose their jobs? If we had a system where, say, the bottom 10 percent of teachers were removed, how would the eagles soar when the turkeys weren't around anymore?
One problem I see is that, because of the way teachers are isolated from each other's classrooms, almost all of them will be pretty sure they're in the bottom 1% when they're having rotten days. And the result will be the kind of miserable work you get after you announce that there will be layoffs in a month.
ReplyDeleteAwesome, I guess that means that comments work.
DeleteHow often would the teachers be layed off for being in the bottom 10%? I think this would create more problems than it would fix. Adding more stress to teachers probably would not be effective. Finding a tenth of your teaching body would also be very costly and time consuming. Teachers should be grouped together in their respective subjects, and when one is failing to provide quality teaching, the other teachers will be the ones to help them or let the administration know that they need to be let go.
ReplyDeleteI don't think fear is the best way to motivate failing teachers. The assumption is that teachers are unsuccessful because they are lazy. People think that they will work harder if thier jobs are on the line. I'm sure there are plenty of lazy teachers out there who might, but many failing teachers just need more support. Why not offer mentorship programs and other kinds of professional development opportunities to these teachers instead?
ReplyDeleteYes. I think all professions should be performance-based. Although measuring "successful" teachers can be a challenge there are a number of metrics that could be used. If the bottom 10% of teachers were fired the quality of instruction and student outcomes would improve.
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