"I don't get tenure on my job. So why should *teachers* ?"

[Smarmie Doofus]

Here's why. Reposted from GLBT.


Gay-themed film cost Oklahoma teacher her job
Gay rights groups are complaining about the firing of a rural Oklahoma high school teacher who lost her job last week after assigning a play about the 1998 death of a gay college student. But the tiny school district says the move came after the teacher held a mock "funeral" for a canceled film production of the play.

The episode began in January, when Debra Taylor showed students at Grandfield High School The Laramie Project, a 2002 film based on the play of the same name, about the murder of Matthew Shepard. The students soon decided to film selected scenes themselves for an in-class project.

Taylor, 50, knew the project was controversial with strong language, but got her principal's permission. A few weeks into it, the principal told her to stop production. After students protested, she held a 20-minute ceremony in a nearby park in which students wrote their thoughts and rolled them into helium balloons, then released them.

The next day, Taylor says, Superintendent Ed Turlington canceled the class. After she complained to a school board member, Turlington put her on paid leave and recommended that she be fired. The school board approved her resignation Friday.

Taylor says she was let go for complaining to the board member, but others say it was a result of the play's subject: homophobia. "They don't want something like this addressed in our community," says senior Matt Ebner, one of Taylor's former students.

<snip>



http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-03-16-teacher-laramie_N.htm

[BlooInBloo]

1. Because teaching is a MAGICAL profession, where it's IMPOSSIBLE to measure performance!

:rofl:

[noiretextatique]

2. in this case, the problem is with the board

and a clearly political firing. i support school management reform.

[angstlessk]

4. fuck that shit...if psychiatrists were paid per performance...they would be minimum wage

get over your hatred for the teaching profession!

[BlooInBloo]

6. Silliness. I love the profession. Just not the squatters currently inhabiting it.

[Hardrada]

10. Thank you for your valuable input, Mr..........whatever.

[Smarmie Doofus]

17. Aren't there ANY good teachers? None at all?

How about the fired teacher in the OP?

[BlooInBloo]

18. Of course there are *some*. Durr.

I don't know nearly enough about the OP teacher to answer specifically, of course.

[rwheeler31]

3. There will be no academic freedom without tenure.

[lynnertic]

5. because *teachers* who are in *unions* get a *say-so*. By the way

your link doesn't work and I can't see where you got that quote from. So I'm replying out of context.

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. Sorry about the link. It works on the GLBT forum. Lemme work on it. nt

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. Thanks. Link fixed. What quote? nt

[DBoon]

7. Because keeping less capable teachers is a lesser evil than political firings

and because, like Civil Service rules, allowing at-will firing would result in teachers being hired and kept as political hacks, based on their loyalty to whoever pulls the strings.

In government, there is a trade-off between employment flexibility and enabling corruption.

[Smarmie Doofus]

15. Strange. My experience is that administrators LIKE "less capable"...

teachers. Prefer them..... in fact ... to smart ass big mouths; i.e. the people that are more knowledgeable about how to educate kids than the administrators are.

This VERY OFTEN the case. Your results may vary.

[DBoon]

19. assume for the sake of argument....

.. that tenure may protect some teachers that are not as capable or motivated, or who may have become less motivated over time.

This is still better than allowing "at will" employment, resulting in schools filled with political cronies who are incapable of teaching as well as the initmidation of teachers who disagree with powerful politicians

As you pointed out, tenure has the extra value of protecting capable teachers against inept management.

[Fire1]

9. Duly noted. n/t

[gratuitous]

12. And the unasked question in response

Is why someone doesn't have job security provisions. Teachers have banded together for a long time to protect themselves and protect their jobs. They've pooled their money, fought hard, and hung together. Other unions have done it as well. The question is, why hasn't a particular profession done it, too? Because they've been persuaded that organizing a union is more trouble than it's worth? And who is telling them that? Instead, they're waiting for the big bosses to decide that, yes, we will let you have a few crumbs from our feast. In the meantime, they're upset because other workers have joined together and taken advantage of their solidarity to bargain effectively with their bosses.

You can do it, too!

[alarimer]

13. There should never be political firings in any field.

Well, except for politics I guess.

[CreekDog]

14. becausing teaching is in many ways like Civil Service

the alternative where people are easily fired would open up hiring to political interference and the "spoils" system.

so while civil service protections can be frustrating, do you want to give Republican school boards the authority to easily fire every Democrat on their teaching staff when they take over a local school board?

any idea what kind of teaching that would lead to?

there are reasons teachers have tenure and there are reasons civil servants have tenure and the problems that lead to civil service rules were BIG and BAD and whatever its problems, these rules are better than the system they replaced.

so whatever you do regarding tenure, if you allow politics to determine hiring and firing, you will have a worse system than you have now. how on earth do you get rid of tenure without opening the system to that type of hiring?

[Smarmie Doofus]

16. Thanks. Tenure didn't just ".happen". There were ... and ARE...

... reasons for it.

[burning rain]

20. The solution is to expand job security for more workers...

rather than decrease that of teachers. It is a classic right-wing ploy to foment envy and resentment among workers. Here's news, if teachers are deprived of tenure it won't do a damn thing to improve the lives of teacher-hating people in other lines of work. But that's what right-wingers offer, not the opportunity to have a union or better wages or benefits, but just the possibility of making other workers miserable, too. It is really perverse, not trying to make a better life for oneself and one's family and coworkers, but just trying to tear other workers down. What we need is solidarity among working people, mutual love and respect and support.

[KittyWampus]

21. So are you saying newly hired teachers should just automatically get tenure from Day One?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

22. It takes three years to get tenure here

And, I've seen first hand what happens to teachers who don't toe the line during those three years.

[tonysam]

23. "Tenure" is a Myth Anyway

It's NOT "lifetime" employment; it means you can't be fired or disciplined without a hearing. But there's a caveat. You get conned by the union to go through the arbitration route instead of hiring an outside attorney to sue in federal court; it's cheaper for the district and the union, and both the union's attorneys and the arbitrator get paid by the district and the union (which indirectly is a part of the district). It's a stacked deck from beginning to end. It's all a big rigged game, and it is virtually impossible to win a dismissal in arbitration; a civil rights attorney friend of mine told me this, saying NEVER use one. I should have had either her or an attorney specializing in employment law; I would have been far better off than going the cheapo route of arbitration and not being able to appeal.

Binding arbitration needs to be made illegal; it circumvents one's right to a trial by jury.

[BlooInBloo]

24. At what level of school is it a myth?

[david13]

25. Tenure is so the professors are immune to the winds

of political change. They don't get a sweep out when a new politician comes in.
dc