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.

Why I Hate My Union

First of all, while people always talk about the teachers' "Union" we are actually a "professional association" NOT a labor union. And although you'd never know it by the way some teacher's gripe about it, we are professionals and, if we expect to be treated that way, should ACT that way.

That being said:

In my first job as an amusement park ride operator and later as a "lead" ride operator I received performance reviews at least once a season. Although my job only consisted of pressing buttons on a roller coaster control panel, and later as lead, giving employees their lunch breaks at the correct time, my performance evaluation had a grading scale like this: Exemplary, Superior, Good, Fair, Satisfactory, Poor. I always received exemplary job reviews. Later one I moved to a different position at a desk in the same park and continued to receive exemplary performance reviews.

When I took my first teaching job, I was crushed when I got my first evaluation. My shock was not because I did not perform well enough, but because so little seemed to be expected of me. If a guy who doesn't even need a high school diploma can get "exemplary" for pushing a button when the light flashes, shouldn't a professional who has a college degree and a teaching certificate be expected to be evaluated as critically? My first evaluation came back with a "Satisfactory" rating checked at the top. "But you were extremely satisfactory," said my assistant principal. As I am sure is the case in many places the only options on the top of the form were "Satisfactory" and "Unsatisfactory." In my amusement part days, a satisfactory job review wouldn't have been very good at all, in my professional life its as good as it gets.

Why do we as professional expect so little of ourselves? Why do we aim for mediocrity and so often manage to hit the mark?

Because our union demands it! If we had "real" job reviews that differentiated the truly outstanding educator from the merely satisfactory educator my current situation might not exist. Perhaps they would see that my colleague, band director number 2, while she does have the appropriate certification to do my job, and she does have more years on the job than I do, just doesn't do the job as well as I do.

I student of mine sent me an e-mail recently after he heard that I was being let go. He wrote, "I hope you get a job close by and do so well that you make Anytown School District look stupid for letting you go!" I hope so too.