In the State of the Union speech earlier this month, President Obama spoke of moving education for the nation’s children up front. The time to exert ourselves is now. We can make improvements that will help the country grow long term.
Great! But the road to student success brings to mind a plethora of factors: tests, budgets, vouchers, evaluation, curriculum, core standards, classroom management, teacher preparation. The list goes on and on.
But wait! A number of state governors are making loud noises about teacher tenure. They are positive that eliminating just this single hundred year old fixture of teacher protection from arbitrary dismissal will solve the problem of low-performing schools.
Every teacher knows the stories of weak colleagues with high salaries and poor classroom management who couldn’t be dismissed without lengthy hearings and attempts to help them improve. And every teacher knows the stories of teachers who were harassed by administrators because they stood up for their rights until they left the profession.
Simply tossing teacher tenure from the state’s education legislation may be the easy thing to do, but would hardly be the solution to teacher quality or achievement for students.
Other measures are being debated.
For instance, Memphis city school system is trying to settle its budget woes by merging the city schools with the suburban schools of Shelby County, Tennessee. Such a merger has set off a conflict of rich and poor, urban vs. suburban needs, shifting costs. Still, those disputes are attempts to improve the achievement of students-the goal of education.
Maybe vouchers are the end all and be all. The Florida legislature has written another bill to make money available for students in failing schools to move to private schools. It could be one way to dismantle low-performing schools, but how to judge whether the particular private school is going to help the new students?
In New York City Schools, Learning Leaders is a volunteer organization that provides tutors and parent education to promote literacy for a school’s low-performing children. The results indicate higher scores on standardized tests, improved attendance, enhanced social skills and behavior. The model is an intense focus on factors to improve achievement for students.
How about three models espoused by organizations to improve teacher quality? William J. Slotnick of Community Assistance and Training Center has helped Denver Public Schools and Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in North Carolina. They focus on models where teachers and principals set goals and select measures for yearly student achievement. Teacher evaluation is based on success in completing the goals.
A report on establishing teacher quality, written by Education Resource Strategies in Watertown, Massachusetts, suggests guidelines for schools, districts, and states. All suggestions are based on a bottom up strategy which should ensure teacher and union participation.
Here are the five suggestions: create teams to plan for change; empower the teams; build better steps to recruit highly qualified personnel to carry out the plan; help teachers achieve potential; reward personnel contributions to student achievement.
A third model offered by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality describes similar steps for improving student achievement and teacher quality. The NCCTQ report specifically takes up the ‘third rail’ of teacher tenure when addressing teacher evaluation issues.
In California all of the problems noted above are hitting the schools: budget woes and merging districts; education experts advocating vouchers; unions offering accountability models for teacher evaluation; models showing ways to improve student achievement in failing schools. It is highly unlikely that the California legislature will cut teacher tenure from the education code. It will, however, be part of a revised teacher evaluation system.
It will be a hard row to hoe. But the ask is to move forward, make change for the good of the country.