Teachers Chief: Bad Teachers Should Find New Jobs

[Purveyor]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Teachers who aren't up to snuff shouldn't be in classrooms and should find new professions, the head of the 1.5 million-member American Federation of Teachers said Monday.

Randi Weingarten told a gathering of her union's rank-and-file members that they should be more vigilant about their colleagues' abilities and said weak educators who don't make improvements only hurt the profession. The tough warning comes as state education chiefs have been trying to implement tougher standards for those in the classrooms and weed out teachers whose students aren't making progress.

"If someone can't teach, after they've been prepared and supported, they shouldn't be in our profession," Weingarten said to applause from more than 2,000 union members meeting here.

Weingarten's speech was a broad assessment of teachers' role in improving not just schools but also their communities. Her remarks, at time resembling a sermon and at others a politically rally, challenged educators to reclaim the promise of public education and to oppose efforts to reduce its role.

Weingarten said too often teachers are left "to sink or swim" without help from more senior teachers or their schools' leaders. She stressed new teachers should be mentored and offered more training if their college coursework was inadequate.

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BAD_TEACHERS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-22-18-35-38

[la la]

1. where has weingarten been....?

back before I retired...10 yrs ago..we were mentoring teachers...some mentors were chosen by a mentor comm...and some just mentored to help new teachers and those with problems...I never have liked Weingarten and still don't...

[femmocrat]

2. Pander much?

[Purveyor]

6. (Pander) To whom and what are you implying ? This is a goddamned Associated Press wire copy issue.

Pick up a local paper in the morning and most likely you will find this article in print.

[femmocrat]

8. Weingarten panders to the so-called "reformers" and right-wingers by....

adopting the "blame the teachers" mindset. If the class isn't jumping high enough it's because the teacher is "bad". I have taught for many years and can count on one hand the "bad" teachers I have encountered (minus my thumb!).

There are so many factors that she isn't mentioning and instead of supporting teachers, she seems to be taking the word of administrators.... and I have met more lousy adminstrators than teachers. But that is a completely different topic.

I don't know who is worse, Randi or Van Roekel. bleah.

Sorry I didn't make myself clear.

Oh... and I forgot. The implication is there that we should spy on each other and rat each other out to those great all-knowing administrators.

[LWolf]

3. Okay. I confess.

I'm a "bad" teacher.

I don't give a shit about test scores, I don't spend hours of unpaid time on the testing "data."

I don't teach to the test.

Instead, I try to make my classroom a welcoming place to be. I try to create an environment of respect, of caring, of safety.

I try to encourage my students to try things without fear of failing, and I support their efforts, where ever they are.

I care more about whether they are full, clean, well-rested, and happy than whether or not they "meet" or "exceed." I care more about whether or not they LIKE learning, rather than what it is they learn.

That makes me a bad teacher in today's education system.

What kind of job should I try to find? I'm in my 50s.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. +1. Never having really taught, Ms. Weingarten would be hard-pressed to answer.

She is a symptom of what's wrong... not... by any stretch.... a solution. What's wrong is: people ( billionaires, politicians, entrepreneurs and extravagantly paid union heads) with no actual hands on experience trying to sell solutions to problems they can't even define.

And of course.... profiting mightily ( monetarily and otherwise) in the chaos they create.

[LWolf]

9. Yes. nt

[Taitertots]

4. The problem becomes: How do you determine which teachers "aren't up to snuff"? n/t

[Recursion]

7. In every other profession you look at outcomes

That's apparently a non starter here

[LWolf]

10. We've always looked at outcomes.

The bottom line, though, is that we've known, since long before the standards and accountability testing movement, that teachers are not the most significant factor in those outcomes. It's SES that impacts "outcomes" more than any other factor, and that is beyond any teacher's scope of influence.

If a child in my classroom is not learning, I'm going to take it personally. I'm going to do whatever I can within the limits I'm given to work with to change that situation.

Sometimes a successful outcome is not measurable on a standardized test. Sometimes "success" is not defined by academic benchmarks.

One example from last year: One of my 8th grade girls, of above average ability and coming with a decent skill set, had an attendance problem. She'd moved from school to school, and had the same attendance problem in each school. For the first couple of months of school, I agreed to meet with her at least once a week before school to help her with the work she was trying to do from home. That apparently reassured her mom; at our first fall parent conference, she listened for a bit and then the dam opened, and I learned way more than I really wanted to know about physical and sexual abuse in the home. I contacted some sources of support for her. Convinced that school would be "safe," the girl began showing up every day. By xmas, the mom was out of the home, but hiding, so the girl wasn't attending any more. I continued to provide work, and "taught" through emails with my student and her mother; the student emailed assignments in to me.

By June, the mother had a new job, an above-ground place to live, restraining orders, and they were moving forward with a new life. This girl didn't show any growth on those high-stakes tests. So, according to those measuring academic "outcomes," I failed her.

I beg to differ. She, her mother, and her younger siblings are now safe and in counseling. She will be attending high school in a different town, but with regular attendance, she'll do well academically.

That's just one story. I've got hundreds of them. Hundreds of students to whom "success" meant something different than those outcomes measured on a standardized test.

I've got lots of stories about academic growth and success as well, but those come AFTER the foundation. Maslow's hierarchy.

[RobinA]

11. No, Not in Every Other

profession. Only in business or businessified professions. There are many professions in which outcomes are not going to be a reliable indicator of competence. And no, I'm not a teacher. I just work in a field where success cannot really be quantified. Not that they aren't trying.

[Taitertots]

12. There are two reasons that your opinion makes no sense

1. The outcomes are largely based on variables that are outside a teacher's ability to control.

2. There is no reliable method to fully measure the outcome.

Even as a proponent of standardized tests, I'm forced to accept the fact that they only measure of very narrow portion of the "outcome". To the point that I don't think they can be used to judge a teacher's ability.