It's Been Awhile - Reaction to Excellent ABC Newspaper Editorial in Support of Teachers

I love this editorial from Don Heinzman of ECM Publishers, which appeared in the April 1 issue of the Anoka County Union.  I’ve captured the online version, a negative comment, and my own comment at the website, below…

Changing tenure and how teachers are evaluated should not be done this session of the Legislature

Don Heinzman Editorial — Tenure for teachers in Minnesota is under attack by conservatives in the Minnesota Legislature.

Tenure, critics say, protects “bad” teachers from being fired and enables senior teachers to get the best subjects to teach.

In reality, this appears to be another step in the ladder to get rid of the teacher bargaining law – just as happened in Wisconsin.

Other bills, besides the one on changing teacher tenure, chip away at teachers’ bargaining rights under the Minnesota Public Employees Labor Relations Act.  Bills introduced in the Legislature would freeze teacher salaries for two years, limit the right for teachers to strike, limit salary negotiations to the summer, set up a new five-year evaluation system and limit the amount of pay to a percentage of the per pupil state aid.

Tenure for teachers is complicated and difficult to understand for the average citizen and makes it easy to criticize in simplistic attacks.

In the main, teachers have tenure after passing a three-year probationary period, to protect them from losing their jobs from arbitrary and questionable administrative evaluations.

Under one proposal, teachers would have their contract renewed every five years, assuming bad teachers would not get their contract renewed.

The sticky question is:  Who is a bad teacher?  Under one bill authored by a Republican legislator, an evaluation of a teacher would be based 50 percent on test scores, which for all kinds of reasons are not reliable to measure a teacher’s performance.

Lifetime tenure may protect a few teachers who have lost their effectiveness, but critics have little evidence to show that teachers are not being discharged under the present system.

It’s a myth that teachers cannot be discharged under the present contract.    A teacher can be discharged immediately for immoral conduct, insubordination or conviction of a felony, for conduct unbecoming a teacher, failure without justifiable cause to teach and for gross inefficiency.

Legislators have shown no evidence that having teachers evaluated and their contract renewed every five years will result in weeding out the so-called bad teachers.

Meanwhile, teachers already under stress as their class sizes are enlarged, would feel more stress as they realize their teaching would be under heavier scrutiny during the five-year evaluation period.

Minnesotans had no idea that teacher tenure would come under such an attack when they voted Republicans into the majorities in both houses.

There’s little evidence that Minnesotans are dissatisfied with the public education, except it is under funded by legislators who prefer to cut spending rather than raise taxes.

By all measures, Minnesota students, except for those in Minneapolis and St. Paul, have a high graduation rate, a low dropout rate, ACT test scores that lead the nation and a high percentage that goes on to college.

Changing tenure and how teachers are evaluated is a huge task that can’t be done in this session of the Legislature.  Start first by having a good evaluation instrument for teachers and proceed from there to improve the process.

Minnesotans who care about their teachers and are alarmed over attacks on them, particularly their tenure, should contact their legislators and express their concern.  If this doesn’t happen, Republican legislators will assume they have the public’s backing. – DON HEINZMAN

http://hometownsource.com/2011/04/01/changing-tenure-and-how-teachers-are-evaluated-should-not-be-done-this-session-of-the-legislature-2/

Comment from a reader, who disagrees:

There is plenty of evidence that Minnesotans are dissatisfied with the public education system. I suggest you tour some of our local private schools and judge for yourself, because there is no comparison. Unfortunately, Minnesotans are held hostage by an extremely expensive, inefficient system that they have to pay for weather they use it or not.

As for tenure, why should teachers get a free pass when nobody else in the business world does? If I am not effective at my job, after a reasonable amount of time I will be let go.

Unfortunately for class sizes, the teachers union drives up the cost of labor per student requiring districts to do more with less and rely on free volunteers to fill in the gaps.

Mr. Heinzman as you are at retirement age I do not believe you have a dog in this fight or a vested interest in how poorly the public education system operates. My wife and I see it first had every day and it is extremely frustrating.

Jason Pietraszewski

My reply:

Thank you, Don Heinzman for capturing the essence of what it means to be a public school teacher in Minnesota, and standing up for a system that not only works well, and not only works better than in most other states, but also works to the advantage of the classroom professionals, their students, and their "customers" - the parents and taxpayers.

I was trained as a public school teacher, taught many years ago, and unlike Jason Pietraszewski and his wife, I don't have children in the schools.  And the way our system is today, I would never have any interest in going back, or frankly encouraging any of my loved ones to pursue a teaching career in this foul environment. What I am Jason is a taxpayer like you, an uncle, a neighbor, and every day I see children in the Anoka-Hennepin school district receiving a world class education for the 21st Century from the teaching professionals my district employs.

Don, you are correct in each of your major points.  You don't find bad teachers through the current evaluative methods, through test scores, or from polls of who the kids like and don't like.  The tenure system is not - and has not - been broken.  Teachers are terminated before receiving tenure.  Tenured teachers are dismissed following proper, legal steps, based on fair labor laws in this state.  Unlike many at-will employees in private schools and the private sector, employment is not based on who curries favor best, and potential discipline and termination are properly adjudicated under labor law provisions.

Who is a good or bad teacher is subjective and often held in the eye of the beholder.  Does the teacher who spends 70 hour weeks devoted to their classroom rate better or worse than the teacher-coach who puts in 30 hours to the classroom and 30 more to their team?  Does the subject matter expert who has difficulty in the social skills of classroom management rate better or worse than the one who charms their students, but has difficulty showing subject expertise beyond the teacher's edition answers?   Who has the harder or easier job - the 1st grade teacher with 15 -20 students still learning to manage themselves and all these new subjects and ideas, or the high school math teacher who teaches two different subjects three times each, every day, to 180 different 9th and 10th graders who'd rather be anywhere but in that geometry or higher algebra class? 

Provide every legal protection for our teachers, help them regain control of their profession, allow them more room and flexibility to police their own ranks in an appropriate manner, and get the parents and public's noses out of the classrooms they've intruded far too far into.  And never, ever, ever, allow our public school teachers to have their collective bargain rights trampled or intruded upon.

Wes