This short clip comes from the non-Oscar nominated movie, Waiting for Superman--a ridiculous movie that embodies the recent proliferation of ignorant people making movies about education. This blog post involves my school experiences--decades of school experiences--all in non-bargaining states where teachers unions are forced into roles of advocacy instead of negotiation. It also involves my recent experiences dealing with teachers that flat-out need to leave the profession.
Generally, teachers are respected. They are seen as underpaid professionals who work long hours and put up with many issues. Most adults can single out a few of the best teachers they had, from elementary school to graduate school.
They can also recall the worst teachers they had.
My worst was my last. Yeah, I went there.
On a typical campus of 100 teachers, five probably need to find a new career. Teaching is tough. You're not a bad person if you are a bad teacher. You do have issues if you continue to teach, though.
The question seems to be this: how do we make all of the teachers good ones?
There are a number of ways to do this. The best-case scenario is one where struggling teachers get training or mentoring...and become good teachers. That takes financial investment and a commitment to the staff on campus. It's not impossible, but there are few (if any) "blanket" programs that can fix individual problems. There are a lot of programs, though. If you can't fix the system, there's plenty of money to be made perpetuating the problem.
Another generally happy scenario is one that involves rigorous (!) teacher preparation and selection; if you don't have the chops, you don't teach children. Similar to teaching's role in the oft-celebrated Finnish system.
That's not what we do in America.
The "barriers" to a teaching career used to involve a commitment to teaching before actual classroom instruction began, including a degree in education. Now, those barriers have become more like general boundaries. I ended up in a journalistic argument with a for-profit teacher trainer in Education Week a few years back. Today, to become a teacher in Texas, you need a degree and a grand total of 30 hours of instruction before taking over a classroom.
This is the idea put forth in Waiting for Superman. Deep content knowledge is all you need.
Suddenly, we have a lot of "bad" teachers in Texas.
And this is now the key issue of lawmakers: how to fire bad teachers. Well over half the laws regarding teacher quality point directly or indirectly at dismissing under-performing teachers. It becomes akin to the 95/5 rule, where 5% of the people take 95% of your time and effort.
So, why don't these teachers get released from their contracts?
The pat answer: unions.
The incorrect answer: unions.
The correct answer: America.
American schools are social situations. To view a stereotypical east Asian system, students spend multiple hours studying mathematics by silently reading books to themselves. Expectations are high on students, and family reputations are on the line. Special education is handled through expulsion. Corporal punishment is common. Social time is strictly limited and often moderated. Kids are products, valued by numbers (test scores).
In the United States, schools function differently. We care about things like bullying, in-class discussion, and social interaction. That's true of students. It's also true of teachers.
To fire a teacher (or pressure a teacher to get better) is to send a message throughout the campus community: the faculty is under attack. The term "teachers union" in Texas is a misnomer. Teachers have very few rights, and yet teachers rarely get fired.
Principals fight "school climate" issues when they pressure teachers to improve. Other teachers in the building become less responsive to constructive criticism, and low-stakes "pointers" mentioned off-hand after a brief visit are perceived as threats to job security. Sometimes, they result in phone calls to attorneys. This is true even when the faculty generally agrees that a certain teacher needs to improve or be removed. After all, having an employed "bad teacher" around provides a feeling of job security! I can vouch for that.
"As long as they don't fire her, I can pretty much do whatever I want."That's a quote. I said that. Often.
To avoid this, the "Dance of the Lemons" continues, whether in a union state or a non-bargaining state. Teachers may feel threatened by principals at times, but principals come under fire from teachers, parents, and central office personnel to keep people happy...to maintain "school climate."
In most cases, things tend to fix themselves. That's the advantage of our "Social America." People don't like to fail daily. They find excuses, and they find the exit door. I can cite a couple of cases where teachers just didn't show up--no warning, no professionalism. Once, the teacher never bothered to grab her lunch bag on the way out of her career-change. She just dropped the kids off at lunch and disappeared. These teachers just couldn't take it, anymore. They also didn't want to own up to their own "failure." Other times, it falls on administrators (often at the upper-district level) to "make the lemons dance."
How do you tell a 30-year veteran teacher he's just not a good teacher anymore?
Sometimes, these rules get codified in a union contract, but that contract just makes things open and honest. In reality, social pressures from inside and outside a campus make it difficult to outright fire a problematic teacher.
But the real "Lemon Dance" issue is complicated. Like America. Like the people that make up America. Like the kids dealing with these teachers that will continue to make America the complex, complicated, imperfect, fearfully-wonderfully-made nation that it is.
I'll take that issue set.
You may have had a problematic English teacher, but you likely had a great one, too. You learn things. It's not a perfect process because it involves people, and people have issues.
It's hard to fire teachers, officially or unofficially. Yes, this is a problem. Yes I agree, it's an unfortunate situation.
We can decry the issue. Politicians and policy makers, I admonish you to keep trying. Just quit blaming progressive states and union contracts that openly disseminate the inner workings of a ubiquitous practice.
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