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EDITORIAL
Needed reforms: To improve schools, stop protecting bad teachers
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Updated: May 24, 2011 | 9:16 a.m.
Friday's meeting of the Senate Education Committee epitomized why student achievement has stagnated in Nevada, and why the meaningful reform legislation that would improve our schools never makes it to the governor's desk.
The Legislature's majority Democrats are, as always, far more concerned with protecting and rewarding bad teachers than ensuring all children have the best instruction possible.
Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval proposed a number of common-sense reforms to turn around struggling campuses. Among them were bills to eliminate tenure; make teacher evaluations more rigorous; provide excellent teachers with higher pay; and eliminate seniority-based, "last in, first out" layoffs of teachers. These issues were examined in this month's Review-Journal series, "Education at a Crossroads."
Studies have shown that a teacher's abilities and knowledge of subject matter are the most important variables in student achievement -- even more important than a student's socioeconomic status. So Gov. Sandoval wants to make sure Nevada's worst teachers are shown the door while its best are rewarded.
On Friday, the Democrats who control the Senate Education Committee did all they could to protect the status quo.
Rather than eliminate tenure, they voted to give new teachers a longer, three-year probationary period, and to move veteran teachers back to probationary status if they receive unsatisfactory evaluations two years in a row.
"We are going to have the best teachers and administrators we can," committee Chairman Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, said Friday. "By helping them get help, we will have improved instruction."
The vote practically ensures an incompetent instructor can set kids back for three years before being fired for poor performance. Would Sen. Denis volunteer to place his own children in a classroom led by a teacher deemed unsatisfactory two straight years? Doubtful.
Sen. Denis and his cohorts also preserved "last in, first out" layoffs. Aside from saving the jobs of lousy teachers at the expense of excellent ones, the practice forces school districts to lay off many more teachers than they would if pink slips were based on performance, impacting more classrooms, because only the lowest-salaried employees are cut.
Rather than mandate merit pay immediately, the committee gave schools until 2014 to establish such programs. The panel supported the governor's proposal to base 50 percent of teacher evaluations on student performance, but watered that down by letting tenured teachers select an outside evaluator for a final assessment at the end of their second straight unsatisfactory year.
This is the failed culture that dooms our education system to mediocrity. No amount of money can improve our schools without reforms such as these -- reforms rejected last week by the Legislature's majority Democrats.
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so many disrespectful teacher should be drug tested because the pay cuts ive noticed the teachers dont give a crap anymore. and believe it or not about 56% of teachers in vegas are daily users of the drugs such as marijuana and crack cocaine and other drgs sch as many kinds of pills. the teachers that are currently thought of as the drug users work in all the clark county school district schools they must be drug tested..
Jasper, I understand the reasoning for unions, my father was a union mechanic and I was a member of three different unions before I went back to school. I've worked in two non union plants and three union plants and was part of the negotiating team when the teachers union began representation of the classified employees that worked for me when I was working in education. The plant that I work at now has the strongest union contract and union organization behind it (UAW) of the three. I have a good relationship with them and have not been grieved. But I have to say that this is the most dangerous place I have ever worked and much of that is due to resistance to change from the two UAW locals here. I do not see the union working for the members, the unions purpose is to maintain the union, not the members.
Your teachers union local in CCSD is the weakest union I have ever seen. With the below standard wages you have and the lack of say in your working environment, you need to seriously consider who represents you. The democratic party knows you will never look to the GOP, so they get your support for free and do nothing during the good times to help you. The biggest tax increases in Nevada history did not go at all to you, increases that were planned by the democratic party. You are angry at your leaders? Become part of the process and get your union to work for you not the CCSD. When your union leaders leave their leadership positions they don't go back to the classrooms, they go to the ed shed, the relationship between them is corrupt. But you will not have the support of the public as long as they consider you to be beyond accountability. And that is the problem that you will have as long as you are represented.
Been a good conversation, perhaps we will chat again.
I wonder who all these bad teachers are? Does someone have some names to throw out there? Lousy teachers do not tend to stay in education. The fairest system is to lay off teachers based on seniority. In general, the more experience a teacher has, the more effective they are. Is it a bad system? Yes, but it is the best one we have. We have bad teachers at my school and they are protected because they share a religion in common with our Principal. You expect this Principal to give these teachers bad evaluations? Don't hold your breath. I have seen two teachers get unsatisfactory evalutions and both times it was in retaliation for getting the Principal written up earlier in the school year, rather than their individual performance.
I love this idea that Principals should be able to fire teachers arbitrarily. Don't be surprised if you see these firing occuring at the same time the children and friends of people with connections are in need of a job. How many horror stories are we going to listen to before this bad idea is repealed?
To bc: Please understand the reason for my anger. No matter how you look at it, the actions being pushed in the state government ends up holding the teachers responsible for the poor choices made by our leaders. While people make an argument against collective bargaining in the public sector, if anything these actions prove the argument wrong.
To bc: Just in case you happen to look at this post, I am in no way in love with unions. In fact, I agree with you that this union doesn't alway have their members interest in mind. However, it needs to be noted that unions came into existence for a reason and that is that employers were taking unfair of their employees. Unions have gone to far and have taken advantage of the excess power that they have achieved. However, my belief is that without some type of representation workers will be taken advantage of. Therefore, management and labor, whether in the private or public sector, must learn to work together. Now, I realize that this is more difficult in the public sector, however it's imperative that we find a way to accomplish this goal.
Jasper: you don't know the half of it buddy. I gave my time to this failure district, and i agree that teachers should have more control in the classroom. If teachers have repeat issues with discilpine, why should they let a dean or administrator tell them to "deal with it, who cares if it effects the learning of the other kids in your class." When the district send some loser administrator to tell teacher how to be "sensitive to cultures" at an expense of over 100k per year, that is a waste of time and money, and it ensures future failures. I think we would agree on most things; however, if bad teachers are allowed to return year after year and do nothing, why would we ever expect a good person to become a teacher? If good teachers can to twice the job an old-school bad teacher can, why would we expect them to accept half the pay?
How long after I realize that for doing the bare minimum I will still get paid the same, continue getting pay raises and continue gaining seniority, how long do you think it will be before I stop going above and beyond? Maybe I started in education because of the kids, and maybe I still care about them and they're my first priority. But eventually I figure out that I care more then they do, more then their parents do, more then the majority of my colleauges and definitely more than my supervisors (who don't even really understand what my job entails). So, again I ask you. When the passion burns out and it's May and I'm just exhausted from fighting an uphill battle, but I know that I'm not going to have a job next year because the old dog in the classroom next door who couldn't care less about his students has been with the District longer than I have, how long do you really think it'll be before I wise up and stop giving it my all? There is ZERO recognition for a job well done that the least competent staff member on this campus isn't also receiving. In fact, if you happen to be a competent go-getter, you can be sure that your higher-ups will over-delegate to you, and you better not say no or express an opinion other than what they want to hear. So this educator got her education. I just have to keep my head down, do my job, don't draw attention to myself and gratefully take my underpay every two weeks. Because in the end, it's just a job. But guess what, you can't be an effective educator if all it is to you is a job. So where does that leave these kids?
Again the RJ misses the core of the issue entirely. The real problem is that teachers are not allowed to simply teach. They are forced to put up with lazy rude brats who should have been kicked out of the system years ago. They are forced to follow inane bureaucratic dictates that do little more than waste precious teaching time and worst of all they are paid an insulting salary as if what they are doing is not really all that important; not to mention having the bloated salaries of the Administration rubbed into their faces. I wonder why the RJ editors continue to ignore the real story?
I agree bc. In the private sector, both leadership and the value-creating team pull in one direction to align with customers needs and to maintain a cost structure that allows the company to compete in it's market. If your fully aligned, you maintain or gain market share, if your 75% aligned your taking on water and if your 50% or below your in the process of sinking. Your job and your future depends on this high level of understanding and coordination to sustain and grow as a company. At least based on these and other comments within the same subject, it seems education, admin & teachers, struggle pulling in one direction. Is it the union? teachers? Ineffective leadership? The more job secure environment? A combination there of? Something is causing the schism.
Jasper, you completely missed my point. The issue many have with education is not evaluations or the difficulty in the work (and teaching is difficult, more difficult than the degrere required to get the job), it is the lack, or perceived lack, of accountability in the current union school environment. No I did not teach, I was in support and worked up from line worker to department head. I had the opportunity to observe and work with some outstanding teachers. If you want to improve your working conditions, get rid of the union and work for better building leadership. If you were in the private sector for 35 years then you must know that a great organization is only as good as it's leadership and the relationship between management and the line worker. Fix that and you may have a better environment and school.