Teacher's Union Ramblings

I wrote a post a while back that ranted and rambled about why I dislike my union, which seems to have gotten a good number of visits from people out there. So I googled "I hate the teacher's union" just to see what else would pop up.

Amongst other things I found this blog post about Steve Jobs (of apple computer fame) criticizing teacher's unions for the woes of our educational system. As you will read if you care to click through, many teachers were afronted that Steven Jobs would criticize the union for these problems, because, afterall, these commenters are members of the union and they care a great deal about education.

The problem that Mr. Jobs was getting at had nothing to do with these teachers who care so much about education they are reading blogs about it on their spare time, it was the politics of the union and union leadership that bothered Mr. Jobs. I used to have the same problem when I'd see a piece criticizing the theachers union on the web or in the newspapper.

It seems to me that the union protects the wrong people. A teacher that is doing poorly and is transfered or put on probation is relentlessly defended by the union, but a teacher such as myself who has moved mountains to get through to his students (and succeeded) is let go with a "gee we're really sorry there's nothing we can do."

One of the commenters defended tenure as a way to preserve "due proccess." And I think they're right. It would hardly be fair to a school board who has little or no formal training or certification in education to let a teacher go on a whim. The problem is that the evaluation system that is in place is so poor, that it is next to impossible to fire a teacher who is performing poorly through due proccess, because that teacher has always been labled "Satisfactory." The bar is set so low, it's hard not to clear that mark!

I've been told that the only way to fire a teacher based on their evaluation is to get them on a technicaillity that has nothing to do with their teacher ability, such as a violation of district policy, or procedure.