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The administrators can get rid of any teacher they want to. Follow
protocol. Granted it is much easier before the teacher earns tenure.
Then the administrators should get rid of the bad teachers before they
earn tenure. If someone has a great first 5 years and then slumps, it
is the administrations job to tell them to pick it up a notch. It might
not be popular, but that is their job. Bad teachers won't like it, good
teachers do. If the teacher continues to stink after a good start, then
get rid of them. Follow protocol. It can be done.
Teacher salaries are not necessarily out of step. Look at the average
income of American workers and look at experienced teacher salaries--and
compare those to other government workers--never losing site of the fact
that these are nine-month jobs (for the most part) -- with many more
holidays than the general worker. Yes I know all the outside work that many
put in, but not everyone is as dedicated as the people on this list or their
immediate compatriots. The public perception is that teachers have 20-25%
fewer work days than most people for salaries that range from 30 up to
80,000 dollars a year.
Several valid (IMHO) reasons that unions could oppose
"merit pay":
- teachers have NO control over quality of the inputs
to "production" (ie, the kids), both initially and
throughout the year. Would you expect assembly-line
workers to accept a system where their wages were tied
to final quality when they were supplied parts of
wildly varying quality?
- how many administrators REALLY know how to evaluate
classroom performance? How would you like it if your
evaluator used a "seat-of-the-pants" approach? In my
exp, this is all too common.
- even if evaluation were based on gain during the
year on some appropriate (how to define?) instrument,
this would present a tremendous temptation to cheat.
Of course the schools and districts are doin a CYA job because they
hide incompetent or even abusive teachers. They will let them resign,
and then not reveal the problems to other schools. I know of cases of
teachers who were caught in the act with a student, were allowed to
resign, and then ended up in another district.
Now some schools do treat their teachers like professionals, but all
too often they do not. In the most extreme examples they require that
teachers be covering the same pages of the book on the same day and
give the same tests even across a district. This is not only
demeaning, but also bad pedagogy. They also provide totally scripted
lessons in some schools, so where is the professionalism?