The teacher tenure bill sounds like an ideal bill. Improve student achievement and hold teachers accountable. Arguing with those statements would be like arguing with “we found a way to end poverty.” Although if a bill proposed to “end poverty,” most rational people would start asking some questions. Ending poverty would be an extremely complex proposition.
Improving student achievement is also a complex problem. Educators have been working on solutions for improving student achievement since…well, there have been educators. Remarkably, Lawmakers in Colorado have just created the solution. Great! Now, let’s be rational people and ask some questions.
The bill states that teachers will be held accountable in a “fair and objective way” but, they don’t know what that is, yet. They know they will figure it out, but for some reason, haven’t been able to, yet. Apparently, they don’t have to be able to complete a bill before they get to pass it.
Of the many factors that affect student achievement, the study cited in accordance with this bill determined 43 percent was attributable to teachers. Teachers’ jobs will depend upon something over which they have less than half of the control. Parents were at 49 percent which leaves students at 8 percent – only 8 percent accountable for oneself? That mindset is a problem.
Associated articles stated that tenured teachers are supposed to be evaluated annually, but that principals sometimes don’t do it, and that teachers with tenure can be fired but it takes time and effort. Lawmakers pass an obscure bill they can’t figure out how to complete. A rational person would instead conclude that principals should be made to evaluate as required, and that Districts should train and allow administrators to follow necessary disciplinary steps – just as corporations have to do – and terminate teachers when necessary.
The rumored standardized test method for measuring student achievement begs endless questions from a rational person such as, if student performance can be measured in one test, why don’t teachers just give one test per year in all subjects? If you don’t know, ask a teacher.
Consider this job description: Manage 120-210 people. Staff turns-over every 4-12 months. Keeping your job is based upon your staff’s performance. The measurement device will be designed by the government. The employees will not be penalized for not performing. If they don’t, you must find a solution.
Resources will be scarce. An employee highly skilled in journalism may be placed in your engineering department – you must make them perform as an engineer. Employees might have high absenteeism – you will be evaluated on their productivity. The less they produce, the more you will be asked to do – not necessarily related to helping them produce.
They must produce at the required level even if they have no skills and have never produced in any previous positions. You have no incentive to offer them for producing and no disincentive to implement if they don’t produce. Ready to apply?
After asking some rational questions, this bill is not as simple as “we found a way to end poverty.” There is only one aspect that does follow some logic. President Obama ordered that teachers and administrators of failing schools should be fired. When implemented in a school, they were reinstated because terminating policies weren’t followed.
The federal government does not have control over schools. It can, however, give money to states for doing something it wants. So, what did Colorado do? It passed a bill that would, as the leader of the proponents of this bill, Senator Michael Johnston, D-Denver, stated: “boost Colorado’s chances of winning the second round of competition for federal education reform dollars.” They passed a bill that will allow the President to have some control over the states’ schools after all. Now it all makes sense.
Kathy A. Theodore is an educator and a NON-NEA member. She lives in Falcon. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
