Poll results: MLive readers against teacher tenure changes by close margin
July 21st, 2011
MLive readers in a poll disagree with Michigans new teacher tenure laws.
In 1,202 votes, 626 were against the changes with 576 votes for them.
The changes include extending the probationary period to achieve tenure, requires school administrators to base staffing decisions off performance and teachers with tenure must earn effective ratings.
In the poll, 291 agree performance is not as important as seniority. Conversely, 266 agreed school districts will target teachers who make the most money.
Readers disagreed on the way teacher should be evaluated.
David Eyke July 20, 2011 at 1:19PM Follow
You can’t truly understand your job without context.
You can’t truly understand your present job unless you have held other professional post-collegiate jobs with which to compare.
The vast majority of teachers don’t have this.
The rest of the non-teaching public however spent at least twelve years in a classroom observing a teacher doing their job. And then they have obtained other employment for the needed critical context.
Understood properly, teachers who have not worked outside teaching are the last people you want to ask about teaching. They have no context as to what’s appropriate management of teachers because they have never experienced anything other than a vacuum of management. This is because collective bargaining has for thirty years stripped all management power away from principals and superintendents.
Ask those people about teaching who have sat in a classroom observing teachers do their jobs for twelve years, and then have gone on to do something else with their lives. That is, the other 98% of us. These are the people who both know what goes on in the classroom, and also what is possible from a management perspective because they have seen it in their own places of employment. All the teacher knows is the unionized management vacuum.
I say these things because I truly believe that the problem with education isn’t education.
I believe the problem with education is management.
The union repeatedly uses the worn-out “if you haven’t spent time in a classroom (I have by the way), then don’t go telling us how to fix things.”
This is simply misdirection. The people making this argument are only trying to corral the “fixing” process to those who also happen to be in the union – people who are likely going to focus on protecting the union first and truly fixing things second.
javamama July 20, 2011 at 8:23PM Follow
The type of accountability they are relying on is student test scores (49%). I’m not against using student test scores to rate an entire school, but to attach the scores to individual teachers is NOT fair. Parents and home have much more of a contribution to a test score than does a teacher. I’m not trying to place blame. There are actual scientific studies that prove this. I also have no fear of “accountability”, I just want to be judged on things I can actually have some control over.
What do you think? Join the conversation.
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Tags: Changes, Mlive Readers, Teacher Tenure
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