Sunday, April 25, 2010

Teacher Layoffs, But No Administrative Cuts? - Courant.com

John Bednarz, South Windsor
Posted by Frank Smith at 25.4.10

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Bednarz hits on the real problem.

Because of the unions, we have too many teachers who are retired in place, because once they are tenured, they can do whatever they want (or in this case as little as they want) and they can never be held accountable because they are not only guaranteed their position for life--no matter how terrible a teacher they really are--but are guaranteed huge raises regardless of how terrible their performance is.

It is about time we had teachers that are held accountable to their students and the parents. One way to accomplish this would be raises based on merit through an evaluation process that involves students, parents and administrators in the process.

Until then, you will continued to have a school system that is full of teachers that are mostly walking dead.

April 25, 2010 at 1:40 PM
Anonymous said...

Unions do little more than to protect incompetence.

April 25, 2010 at 4:18 PM
Nicholas Mercier said...

I disagree that unions merely protect incompetence. Unions also do not provide an iron clad shield against dismissal. If a district wishes to get rid of an incompetent teacher they can, they just need the fortitude to do so. Look at what Superintendent Alan Beitman did in Manchester, he created a dismissal track to get rid of teachers who were unable to perform.

You need an administration and superintendent as well as a Board of Education that is dedicated to purging incompetent teachers. Hopefully whoever replaces Dr. Kurtz will make seeking a high quality and motivated staff a top priority.

Merit based pay has huge problems. How do you pay a Physical Education,Home Economics or Auto Shop teacher based on merit? Is it fair to base the pay of a teacher who teaches all AP courses as one who teaches general studies? How do you involve students in the process in elementary school? And how do you separate a teacher who is well liked from a teacher who is competent? Merit pay can be somewhat effectively instituted on a school wide basis where entire schools receive incentives based on merit, but even that system is tricky to manage.

There is no easy solution to such a complicated problem and people who look for a magic bullet will often come up with ineffective policy decisions.

April 25, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Anonymous said...

Tell that to the New Britain teacher I know who will tell you to your face that you can kiss her fat you know what before she will lift a finger to do one ounce of work more than is required. She will tell you she has tenure and you can kiss her you know what! She brags about how she is just putting in her time until she can cash in her big fat pension and free health care for life. This is what you have teaching your children, and thanks to the unions, these "do nothings" are rewarded at taxpayer expense.

April 25, 2010 at 8:34 PM
Retired educator/administrator said...

Nick Mercier is absolutely correct in his comments.

The commenter quoted next is not correct:
[" Anonymous said...
Tell that to the New Britain teacher I know who will tell you to your face that you can kiss her fat you know what before she will lift a finger to do one ounce of work more than is required. She will tell you she has tenure and you can kiss her you know what! She brags about how she is just putting in her time until she can cash in her big fat pension and free health care for life. This is what you have teaching your children, and thanks to the unions, these "do nothings" are rewarded at taxpayer expense.

April 25, 2010 8:34 PM]
If "teachers" like the one quoted in the comment above exist, it is because of incompetent administrators that are not doing their jobs. With documented, professional evalution of this teacher by the immediate supervisor, ant teacher can be terminated. Too many administrators are fearful of the unions because they themselves are incompetent supervisors of instruction and professionalism.

April 26, 2010 at 12:10 PM
Anonymous said...

Maybe we need to clean house from top to bottom, since no one in the school district seems to want to do their jobs, oh that's right the union protects the "do nothings."

April 26, 2010 at 3:43 PM
Nicholas Mercier said...

Anonymous,

It is easy to blame the unions, the teachers, the administrators, the students, the parents, or whatever group you want. It is far more difficult to become involved and come up with a workable solution to a problem.

I refuse to believe that "everyone" doesn't want to do their jobs within the school district. In fact I'd be willing to bet we have a great deal of dedicated and competent teachers working for New Britain. So rather than level blanket insults at all the teachers why not work to actually reform the system in a meaningful and positive way?

April 26, 2010 at 5:42 PM
Anonymous said...

Milford has it right, not only are they laying off 45 teachers, but there are even closing one of the schools to cut the budget!

April 26, 2010 at 7:38 PM
Nicholas Mercier said...

Anonymous;

Sadly when layoffs occur it is often the younger, more enthusiastic teachers who are let go. Closing schools is fine, assuming you aren't creating class sizes that are so large that they negatively affect student learning. All school districts should conduct frequent reviews of the their facilities to determine whether or not they are being under utilized so that the number of schools is equal to the need of the town.

April 27, 2010 at 3:01 PM
Anonymous said...

Sadly when layoffs occur it is often the younger, more enthusiastic teachers who are let go:

More evidence that unions are the problem.

The district should be able to layoff the teachers that are not performing, instead the union process rewards them while eliminating the most productive teachers. I can promise you that in a right to work state, it is the problem children that would be the first to go, but here you will protect them and give them huge raises instead.

April 28, 2010 at 7:38 AM
Anonymous said...

Just another example of how unions are ruining everything, not one of the SEC employees that was watching porn on government computers and government time was even fired. Just another example of how unionized government employees can do whatever they want with impunity.

April 28, 2010 at 8:36 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Web Tracking
Online Florist