To Tim Elmore: Here's What You're Missing

At Growing Leaders, Tim Elmore ends his column "The Cost of Bad Teachers," with a question: "Am I missing something here?"

Yes, Tim, I believe you are. I will, as you request, try to talk to you.

You lead off with a pair of questions:

Can you imagine a world where doctors, who are simply pitiful at practicing medicine, get to keep their jobs as physicians? Or where CEO's, who can't lead a company into a fair profit margin, get to remain as CEO, regardless of their unacceptable performance?

First, before the punctuation nazis get in an uproar, yes-- as punctuated, Tim, you just said that all doctors are pitiful and all CEOs are incapable of leading companies. I'm going to suggest that punctuation nazis relax so we can talk about what you clearly meant.

These questions are really beside the point, but I'm weary of the continued assertion that out in the Real World folks win and lose strictly on merit. Because without using imagination at all, I can take you to a world where hospital staffing has way more to do with politics and connections than quality. And I think we can all imagine a world where executives make choices so reckless and irresponsible and arguably illegal that they crash their company and, in some cases, bring the nation's economy to the brink of disaster, and yet these executives get to keep their jobs, get bonuses, and in some cases, receive appointment to highly lucrative government positions.

Again-- none of this really means a thing as far as dealing with less-than-stellar teachers. But I think it would be useful to stop pretending that all other sectors are humming along in perfectly-functioning meritocracies. Pretending that we have established meritocracies before just adds to the illusion that we can do it for schools. In a sense, this is like opening your argument with "Why aren't schools powered by cold fusion generators?"

You go on to refer to tenure as a "job guarantee," and you put it in quotation marks, which tells me that you know you are overstating your case here. Tenure does not guarantee a job for life. It guarantees a teacher due process, and is still a protection against being fired for reasons from benching a school board members kid in sports to campaigning for the wrong party to speaking up against a school policy that is wasting the taxpayers' money.

Teacher’s Unions have filed an appeal, but parents are not budging. They want good teachers “in” and bad teachers “out.” - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.bwO6UUjJ.dpuf

Teacher’s Unions have filed an appeal, but parents are not budging. They want good teachers “in” and bad teachers “out.” - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Teacher's unions have filed appeals but parents are not budging. They want good teachers "in" and bad teachers "out." 

This suggests that teachers' unions are somehow really devoted to keeping bad teachers in the classroom. I defy you to find me ten union teachers anywhere in public school who would agree with that sentiment.

You go on to cite some stats from the Vergara trial. The "number of bad teachers" estimate turns out to be a fabricated number (as explained by the person who fabricated it). The data about how much money a student loses over a lifetime by having a bad teacher has been debunked many, many times. Here's one example.

You then ask people to reflect on good and bad teachers they had back in school. I agree we can all do this. But as you're drifting back in memory, I want you to take it a step further. Can you remember a good teacher that every single solitary student in the classroom thought was good? Because that's our problem here. One of the teachers cited as grossly ineffective was also a multiple award-winning teacher; follow this link and you can find video of her teaching and students praising her work. But a single student in her classroom has now made this teacher a national poster child for gross ineffectiveness?

That door swings both ways. You and I both can come up with teachers that we thought were terrible. But even though Mr. McDull was uninspiring to me, I'm not so sure that I can swear definitively that he never inspired any other students at all.

My point is not that bad teachers do not exist. My point is that identifying them is far more difficult than you seem to think it is.

You say that often the union won't let schools fire bad teachers. I don't know of any school district in the country where a union has that kind of power. Now, in some large urban districts, the union can certainly make the process and long and costly, and that is absolutely and unquestionably a problem that needs to be solved. But "solving" it by destroying tenure is like solving the problem of ugly drapes by burning down your house.

You invoke supply and demand, and honestly, I have no idea what the heck that has to do with tenure. But you do wheel around to the idea that everybody should add value, and while I would argue that we should not talk about schools as if they were toaster factories, I'll play along for the purposes of this conversation, because even if we use the language of value-added, we come down to a basic problem-- we haven't got a clue how to measure it. Not a clue.

We have folks pitching the idea that we can measure it by looking a student scores on standardized tests. There are (at least) two major problems with that--

1) We don't know how to do it. We especially don't know how to do it for teachers who don't teach the testing subjects or students, but we're now looking at systems that judge teachers based on how students they never had in class do on tests of material that said teacher never taught. IOW, a school where the fifth grade phys ed teacher is evaluated based on third grade reading scores. And even if we want to evaluate the third grade teacher on those scores, are we really prepared to assert that the teacher is 100% responsible for the student scores?

2) Go back to your memory of the great teachers that inspired you. Would you say that getting you to do well on standardized tests really captures what makes you remember them as a great teacher? I didn't think so.

You finish with five statements about human nature that you believe apply here:

1) We are at our very best when we have the opportunity both to succeed and to fail.

I don't disagree. But what happens if we are operating in a system where "success" and "failure" are determined by factors that are completely beyond our control? Does that bring out our best?

2) Without the guarantee of tenure, I will strive to find a job in my strength area.

I'll be honest. I'm not sure what you're saying here. If I don't have tenure, I'll try to get a job matching my certification, because... I don't know. Having tenure in a crappy job that doesn't allow me to excel will somehow discourage me from looking for the chance to have tenure in a great job that suits me perfectly? I'd refer you back to your first point-- I will look for a chance to be my best, and that's a job where my strengths can be used to achieve success. I don't see a connection to tenure here.

3) I have incentive to keep improving when I know I must work to keep my job

And if keeping my job has nothing to do with improving? What if keeping my job means giving the school board member's kid straight A's and the lead in the school play? What if keeping my job means never ever ever questioning my administrators, even when they are making what I believe are professionally irresponsible choices? What if keeping my job means keeping a low profile and being just as bland and boring I can be?

Removing the protections of tenure does not equal "must work to keep my job." In many states and districts, it means something else entirely.

4) I become the best version of myself when I give my very best each day.

Don't disagree. But how is this connected to tenure. Do you really believe that you, personally, would stop doing decent work if you had job security? Because personally, and I try hard to show this to my students, and I think most of them find it true-- doing your best and being your best self is rewarding all by itself. I have just never met the person who I can imagine saying, "Yeah, being my best self feels okay, but not any better than being my most mediocre self, so why bother?"

5) In the end, the students lose and the faculty gains with teacher tenure.

You realize that you didn't really support either of these assertions.

As is often noted, teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions. Students benefit from teachers who can keep all their focus on teaching, and not the politicking and CYA needed to hold onto their job in an "at will" setting. Students benefit from a stable school where teachers are not regularly cycled out because they are too expensive. Students benefit from having teachers who are committed to a lifetime of teaching, just as they benefit from maintaining teaching as a profession that is actually attractive to the best and the brightest.

You do not attract the best and the brightest by saying, "We're not going to pay you much-- in fact we'll fire you if we think you're getting expensive. We won't give you much autonomy or chance to gain power and responsibility over your work conditions. And we'll fire you at any time for any reason, including reasons that have nothing to do with how good a teaching job you're doing."

But it's possible that I'm the one missing something. In your vision of a tenureless teaching world, how do you see yourself convincing people to pursue teaching as a career?

Ineffective faculty members get to keep their jobs, regardless of their poor performance in the classroom. It’s a “job guarantee” that takes away incentive for many… - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Ineffective faculty members get to keep their jobs, regardless of their poor performance in the classroom. It’s a “job guarantee” that takes away incentive for many… - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Can you imagine a world where doctors, who are simply pitiful at practicing medicine, get to keep their jobs as physicians? Or where CEO’s, who can’t lead a company into a fair profit margin, get to remain as CEO, regardless of their unacceptable performance? - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Can you imagine a world where doctors, who are simply pitiful at practicing medicine, get to keep their jobs as physicians? Or where CEO’s, who can’t lead a company into a fair profit margin, get to remain as CEO, regardless of their unacceptable performance? - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf

Can you imagine a world where doctors, who are simply pitiful at practicing medicine, get to keep their jobs as physicians? Or where CEO’s, who can’t lead a company into a fair profit margin, get to remain as CEO, regardless of their unacceptable performance? - See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/cost-bad-teachers/#sthash.b7yFgLWQ.dpuf