Phase II Podcast

Hi, my name is Eric Jorgensen, a Computer Science Major at Purdue University Calumet, and I’m going to discuss an important part of Indian’s as well as the entire nation’s inability to fire teachers once they have obtained tenure.

According to the documentary “Waiting for Superman” one in every 57 doctors loses their license to practice, one in every 97 lawyers loses their law license, yet only on out of every 1,000 teachers are fired for performance issues(2010). While a doctor failing to do his job correctly could end in a person’s death as well as a lawyer if a teacher does not do his or her job correctly entire student bodies can be left behind without hope of ever catching up.

At one point in our history the American student tested higher than any other in the world. Today however, we are ranked somewhere around 13^th. For a long time it was thought that if the correct plan of study or pedagogy could be found then we would once again see a rise in our education standards. Only now is it becoming clear that it may not be the things we are teaching but the people doing the teaching.

Why not just fire them? That is the simple answer, if someone is not doing their job you fire them and hire someone who will. Unfortunately it really is not that simple. With teachers they gain what is called “tenure.”

Originally tenure was created to be a process through which government officials or school board administrators could be kept from firing anyone they wanted and replacing them with friends or family members as well as protect teachers who took political stands. Sadly it is a case where something designed to do so much good is now the cause of so much bad. In many cases teachers are given tenure within 2 years of starting. That coupled with the power of the teachers union makes them almost impossible to fire. One union lawyer is quoted as saying, “If I’m representing them, it’s impossible to get them out. It’s impossible. Unless they commit a lewd act.”(2011)

One huge controversy was the New York City “Rubber Rooms” of the late 2000’s. In NYC when a teacher was accused of anything from corporal punishment to lewd acts they were not fired. Instead they were sent to what was officially called Temporary Reassignment Center’s. These rooms basically consisted of a class room where any number of teachers who were facing trails due to professional incompetency waited. Like any other teacher they clocked in around 8:15 and clocked out at 3:30. And just like every other teacher they were paid their full salary as well as medical benefits for however long they stayed in the rubber rooms. New York State law dictates that teacher’s retirement is 2% per year after their tenure is granted. So in addition to regular pay some teachers who stayed as much as 3 years gained 6% retirement wages.

These teachers are protected by the unions. A teacher cannot simply be fired because the union lawyers will be there to wrap the case up in court as long as it takes. And during that time the teacher will be collecting wages for nothing. One such teacher is Patricia Adams. According to a report by the Education Department, on Nov. 23, 2005 Adams was found “in an unconscious state” in her classroom. When the principal “attempted to awaken [Adams], he was unable to.” When a teacher “stood next to [Adams], he detected a smell of alcohol emanating from her.”(2009) After 2 years Adams returned to teaching. In February 2009 she was found “passed out” and was unable to even use a breathalyzer. Her water bottle was found to be containing vodka.

This was a teacher that collected pay for 2 years and that the union fought to have reinstated because of “wrongful termination.” Last year about 99 percent of teachers were rated as “satisfactory” by their school systems (Thomas, 2010). As far as education goes, nothing is more important than hiring good teachers and firing bad ones. Yet almost all teachers were rated as just “satisfactory.” In any other profession that would imply that a person is doing their job well enough to continue to work wherever it is that they work.

In 2009 the Los Angeles Times reported that fewer than 2 percent of teachers are denied tenure during the two year probationary period before being hired (Felch, 2009). It would be nice if this were a perfect world and everyone was a good person that did their job to the best of their abilities and worked hard for their paycheck, but to say that less than 2% of the teachers where not competent in their jobs is a bit of a stretch. Again in 2009 the LA Times reported that between the years of 1995 and 2005, only 112 Los Angeles tenured teachers faced termination (Felch, 2009). If you do the math that’s about 11 teachers per year, out of 43,000. A side fact that may interest you is that in 2003 the high school graduation rate in L.A. was 51%.

At a college level tenure is only acquired through many years of service to the college through journals published as well as a Master’s Degree in your field of study at the very least. The sad fact is that the people who teach at the very core of our education system are often the worst. Clearly the vast majority of teacher’s work hard and deserve their jobs, but those that do not are giving the rest a bad name. The union is in place to help teachers that are wronged get their jobs back. However is it worth it to keep a thousand bad teachers on salary or be able to keep one who does their job?

While it may seem that this is a simple fire those that don’t work case it is not. There is nothing wrong with the union helping teachers who believe that they have been wronged. The unions were created for just that reason. The problem comes when you are forced to pay a teacher their full salary as well as adding a retirement bonus while lawyers tie the case up in court for years.

In 2011 the Senate Enrolled Act One was passed. This is the first step to removing those teachers that have become such a huge problem for the education system.  While this was a law passed only in Indiana it shows that there we are making steps towards removing the road blocks along the path to firing those teachers that do not care about the children they teach.

For more information on Act One, visit //www.in.gov/legislative/bills/2011/SE/SE0001.1.html. For more information on the New York “Rubber Room’s” visit //www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill or simply google “New York Rubber Rooms.” For more information on the Documentary Waiting for Superman visit //www.waitingforsuperman.com/action/.