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Disgraced teacher is worth $10M, makes $100,000 a year, does nothing, & won't retire
- Thread starter Gaborn
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I can't click on links too often at work, so if that's the case that is a bit silly. However, was his guilt grounds for termination and if so, they could re-punish him could they?
Dude Abides
Banned
Come on now. If the DOE wants to get rid of someone, it "gets" something if it wins - a bad, possibly criminal, teacher is gone and no longer a problem. Also, the administrators are people with reputations to protect. They don't like to lose cases and have their decisions reversed.
But it appears, based on that article, that the only one that was actually testified to was the fairly innocuous "you must love me" comment. One week's unpaid leave seems fair for that conduct.
crazygambit
Member
But then how do you fire an incompetent arbitrator?
Sure but... let me use the world of sports as an analogy. Whenever a CBA is agreed to the goal is to make both sides feel like this is a deal they can live with. You give some things, you take some things. Sometimes a previous deal might have been particularly favorable to one side or the other, in which case the new deal may "give back" something. In these situations it's still understood even when one side "loses" that the arbitrator is looking at a fair result.
In the case of the the DoE vs the teacher's union, the DoE is concerned with the process, they don't want to get sued by a teacher wrongly terminated and they don't want to get sued by a parent for allowing a teacher they know has a particular issue to harm their kid in some way. Sure the DoE wants to win in a competitive sense, but it's not "personal" with the organization (it might of course be for a particular principal or a particular administrator with an issue with a specific teacher but as a whole it's doubtful).
Wheras the UTF may very well have an economic interest in punishing administrators that fire their teachers that goes beyond what the DoE does. They're not on equal footing because the members of the UTF can hold their leadership to account for not fighting in every which way for their membership, something the DoE doesn't really fear.
Perhaps, but given the other comments I sure as hell wouldn't put him in the class room. Teachers in this situation should be let go if the district does not want to give them another class.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Sooo, if he was convicted of conduct unbecoming a teacher, and also deemed too dangerous to return to kids, that's not good enough of a firing circumstance?
quickwhips
Member
I watched waiting on superman last night on netflix and this stuff really just blows my mind how this can happen. Such a waste of tax payers money.
Actually we're talking about the USA. Teachers are still persecuted for teaching evolution and sex education.
But ya, they need to fire people who are rubber roomed for more than 2 years.
elrechazado
Banned
Sucks. But we'd have plenty of coin for inefficiencies like this in the system if we weren't been systematically defrauded by an industry (and social class) of financial shysters working overtime to wrought the system until it's drained it dry of every drip of blood sweat and tear.
Lttp.
I was just commenting on that statement. We've considered several options of which none will be implemented, so at least he's away from the kiddies.
Getting rid of tenure to stem cases like this in high schools or universities would be a horrible mistake. Technology and knowledge advance so quickly that you can't stay at the top for very long. What would stop schools from dropping most professors/teachers at 55-60 when they have been past their peak by a decade or so?
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Good job performance?
The problem is there are plenty of eager upstarts that can do a good job for a cheaper salary that would be willing to take the job. Do you know how many underemployed PhDs there are floating around, stuck in perpetual low paid post docs?
Good luck finding an accurate measurement for that in public schools.
... Are you trying to argue for or against tenureship here?
Byakuya769
Member
You're a good guy, but I have to call bullshit on this. It presupposes that education is some peculiar field that is vastly different from any other profession. Most physicians aren't getting tenure. I could only hope lawyers could be so lucky. Accountants get paid comparably to teachers and there's no tenure for them.
What is so inherent to education that it is necessary that the union doesn't just negotiate wages, benefits, and work conditions, all perfectly fine and reasonable to me, but must protect tenure which ensures mediocre teachers can run out the clock? The implied pretext seems to always be that if tenure went away, many good and great teachers would be fired? Huh, why? Or is the argument that teachers would decide teaching isn't worth it without tenure? I think individuals who are putting that in their cost-benefit analysis are so risk adverse that they aren't going to flock to other comparable fields.
I understand why teachers want to protect tenure, it's a good benefit. But I find it hard to take their concerns over working in a professional environment like 90% of everyone else very seriously.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
If they can do a better job than the person they replace, I don't really see a problem with that.
Student performance relative to the neighborhood standard + the discretion of a competent principle who takes into consideration feedback from students/coworkers/parents might be a good start.
MidgarBlowedUp
Member
So he was accused of making lewd comments and ogling eighth-grade girls butts. However, they couldn't find enough witnesses for the hearing? So, instead of proving that he did anything they decided to go ahead and punish him by forcing him to get paid large sums of money for not working?
Good for him.
Good for him.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Of those who accused him, only one testified. He was found guilty. He got a slap on the wrist.
I used to be super against this but after watching a friend's parents lie and threaten their kid through school im not. The problem is that they effectively didn't convict him of anything. But yet they somehow deem him unfit? Maybe they should have built a better case before sending him to do nothing. If they did this to me without any proof I'd do the same thing as him.
I don't see what's wrong with what the guy did. The system is the thing at fault here.
It isn't as if he was assigned something to do but didn't do it. This guy used to be on a teaching capacity. The school assigned him to do nothing when they couldn't provide any evidence of his wrongdoing. What he had done was perfectly within his right.
It isn't as if he was assigned something to do but didn't do it. This guy used to be on a teaching capacity. The school assigned him to do nothing when they couldn't provide any evidence of his wrongdoing. What he had done was perfectly within his right.
Zoe
Member
Doesn't make it ethical though.
Terrible idea. You can only consider feedback to a minimal degree if at all especially when you have whiny students and parents who think their kids as gods gift to this earth.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
All students and parents are not like this.
A competent principle with even mediocre management skills should be able to process and filter all the feedback accordingly.
It's amazing how different the word "tenure" is in different part of the U.S.
Where I went to university, all tenure meant was that if you did your job and there was ANY possible way to fund your position (i.e., moving money around in the budget, if necessary), then you would have a job. It basically just meant that you didn't have to worry about passing a certain amount of your students to keep your job.
Where I went to university, all tenure meant was that if you did your job and there was ANY possible way to fund your position (i.e., moving money around in the budget, if necessary), then you would have a job. It basically just meant that you didn't have to worry about passing a certain amount of your students to keep your job.
Oh dear I hope you are kidding.
At some point this ideology of treating people like replaceable machine parts is going to break down. Especially in fields that depend heavily on mentorship and collaboration to function optimally.
Principles don't have time to do this kind of management effectively. They are usually "managing" 20+ teachers minimum while also dealing with hundreds of kids. Being a principle is like being the head of a department. Someone that makes the big overall decisions, choices and goals but doesn't know shit about what happens on a person to person day to day level. What we need is to have effective mid level managers that can actually do performance evaluations or at least something other that what we have now.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Hiring a someone who is a better teacher != treating them like machine parts.
There's no reason to expect the turnover rate to be as rapid as you fear.
Dr.Guru of Peru
played the long game
Uh, yes? Are we supposed to end the teaching career of every teacher falsely accused of sexually harassing a student?
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Yes they do.
Big overall decisions....like hiring teachers.
http://www.greatschools.org/improve...akes-a-great-principal-an-audio-slide-show.gs
If they do not have at least a cursory familiarity with their school at this level, then they are a disgrace to their job.
There are already tons of people employed as HR and mid level managers, micro managing their little details far away at a desk at the board of education. Apparently they're not doing a very good job.
ElectricBlue187
Member
Ladies and gentlemen I present to you, the boomer generation.
It takes a teacher 5-7 years to become a good teacher, and a lot of that is through continued mentorship and collaboration. Why the hell would existing teachers agree to take on teacher candidates (a voluntary role) or mentor new teachers if they had to worry about them taking over their job in 5-10 years?
The problem with Academia and teaching is that it takes many years of training and the help of several experienced colleagues to become good/excellent, and almost all researchers/teachers hit their peak some years before retirement age.
You are lucky if you even get a faculty job, let alone reach tenure, by your early to mid-30s in Academia. Who wants to spend 15 years post-secondary both in school and working for crappy wages just for the chance to be paid moderately well for 15-20 years before you are deemed obsolete? Especially in Canada where profs can't make a quarter million dollars a year at a private university (They cap at about $120K).
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Because it's part of their job description.
It doesn't take that long ("many years") to become a good teacher, and it sounds like you're describing secondary education instead of primary education.
Byakuya769
Member
Where does the 5-7 years come from? Teachers cannot be judged by any metric if you have them tell it, yet we can discern that it takes them 5-7 years to become good teachers? How are we deciding that? Further, even if it was true, many careers are started on a long track of learning, so that's not unheard of.
And you would mentor new teachers because 1) it's your job and 2) it's going to take them 5-7 years to become a good teacher, so experience should entail that you're likely a better teacher than them, right?
Correct
No they really don't
Uh yea? It is a very important job to hire the right people. All of that plays right into the overall director spot. Hiring the right people. Creating a culture of learning and direction and providing initiatives.
This is exactly what im talking about. Having a cursory feeling is a very poor way to manage. Since you can often overlook things or be wrong.
You must not work in the private sector because you would be amazed how inefficient it was if you think like this. The middle school I went to has over 75 teachers with over 600 kids. There is one head principle and two assistant principles. With all that is going on they don't have the time to do the managing you think they do. I have never had a private sector job that didn't have a manager for every 10-15 people. Its our company policy that you have a manager for every 10-15 people or 20 max. They don't think you can effectively manage beyond that.
Zoe
Member
Wait, are you saying all this because you've worked in the public school system or are you extrapolating from your private sector experiences?
Zoe
Member
Edit: scratch that, that's not the point I wanted to make.
My wifes a teacher. My mother and mother in law do administrative work for schools (secretaries to principals). I have worked (and currently working) for two fortunate 500 insurance companies. So ive been talking about my experiences through my family (school side) and myself from private sector. A lot of people want private sector level of management of school teachers when thats just not possible in the current form that we have now.
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