An Urgent Call for Reform Staff Editorial
New York Daily News, May 11, 2005 Common Good's Over Ruled study continues to fuel calls for reforming America's over-legalized public schools.
The New York Daily News cites the study and reprints our entire "How Do I Fire an Inept Teacher" chart in an editorial calling for a "fundamentally new contract" between teachers and the city--one that would reward good teachers, and give school leaders the authority to fire bad teachers.
Today in New York City schools--and in many other schools across the country--it is difficult to fire teachers even for criminal behavior and nearly impossible to fire teachers for incompetence.
Describing the process detailed by Common Good, the Daily News writes:
The chart ... captures the hypercomplicated maze that confronts a school administrator who would like to replace an inept teacher with a skilled one. The process entails reams of paperwork and numerous hearings and appeals often stretching over more than two years. And just as bad is what the chart does not show.
The well-intentioned principal must draw up a bill of particulars documenting the time, place and manner in which the teacher demonstrated incompetence, prove at a trial-like proceeding that each incident happened as charged--and then be prepared to lose. In the past two years, school officials got the okay to fire only four of 80,000 teachers for poor performance. ...
Start to finish, a case can consume 150 hours, or roughly 15% of a principal's time in a year.
The process, as the Daily News argues, can and should be made "simpler while still granting a fair hearing to teachers." The city will also need to compensate teachers for giving up the "extraordinary job protections" of their current contract.
Public schools can only function effectively if some person or group is given the authority and the responsibility to judge teachers' merit and to act accordingly. This person or group needs then to be held accountable for their actions. Today, school staffs are managed "by the books" without human judgment or real accountability.
Read the New York Daily News editorial.
Learn more about Common Good's Over Ruled study.
| 
