Late last night, the Kansas legislature stripped Kansas teachers of all major job protections.
I suppose you could claim that it wasn't all bad; Kansas ultimately decided NOT to pay parents to home school. But all in all, it was still pretty bad.
It was a textbook example of how politics works these days (and also how it is covered; in Pennsylvania I followed the story in real time on twitter).
On Saturday, teachers who got word of the new attack (attached to a bill that Kansas needed to pass in order to settle the lawsuit they lost about underfunding rural schools) flocked to the capitol, and the legislators simply tried to wait them out. Late Saturday night it appeared that the bill had lost and that legislators couldn't outwait the teachers anymore. At 3 AM, they packed it in.
Except, they didn't. A 4 AM meeting allowed the GOP to regroup and catch their Sunday wind. Meanwhile, the Koch Brothers arrived in Topeka, set up camp in a senator's office, and started chatting with moderate GOP legislators Godfather style. The threat was simple-- you'll vote for this, or you'll be fighting a primary battle against a well-financed more conservative opponent from your own party. Meanwhile, teachers were hilariously posting "while you were out" messages on Governor "I'm For Education Just Not In Doing Anything About It" Brownback, who has yet to open his mouth usefully on this mess.
I would have given a limb yesterday just to fly John Roberts to Topeka so that he could see how rich guys with lots of money pervert and corrupt the political process. Thank you, Supreme Court.
So late last night, the Kansas House and Senate took important steps to "protect excellent teachers" in their state, and to give school administrators the power to fire whoever-the-hell they want.
Is this an ALEC job? At this point, I don't know, and I don't care. I do know this "protect excellent teachers" baloney is popping up everywhere. Students First is already bringing it to Pennsylvania. And of course many states are already there. So is this a fully coordinated effort, or just the current wave in reformy stuff? I don't know. But I do know two things--
One is that this can barely even pretend to be about school reform. Sure, it ploughs the road for cheaper charter operation, and now it will be easy to fast-food-ize staffing at schools. But those are side effects. This is just a direct face-on assault on the teaching profession, on slapping down those uppity teachers and putting them in their place.
The other is sad and chilling. I know that last Friday, Kansas teachers could go about their jobs knowing that even if they refused to teach creationsim, gave the wrong kid a bad grade, went to the wrong church, loved a person of the wrong gender, has the wrong hairstyle, stood up for the wrong kid, or pissed off the wrong administrator, they would still keep their job. This morning they are going to work with no such assurances.
Very chilling. And notice how no one actually asks "excellent teachers" what they think.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, the states ranked highest nationally in education performance have the strongest union protections for their teachers. Kansas forgot to ask Mississippi and Alabama how no teacher tenure has worked out for them.
ReplyDeleteCombine this with the gutting of tenure in the Kansas university system last December, and you have a top-to-bottom decimation of education across the state.
ReplyDeleteYea, too bad they now have to live under the same circumstances every other hard working person has to work under. It's about time.
ReplyDeleteYes, Joe, that makes perfect sense. If there are employees out there living in fear of losing their jobs over everything from their religion to their unwillingness to accept sexual harassment to wanting to make a living wage-- why, by gum, those are the conditions that EVERYBODY should work under. We shouldn't make things better for some people-- we should make them worse for everyone else.
ReplyDeleteOne question, Joe. How would you feel if your child was having a problem at school, and you went to ask the teacher to help, and the teacher's reply was, "I'm sorry, I'd like to stick up for your child, but I could lose my job."
What facts do you have to support your claim that this will only be used to fire someone for those reasons? That seems to assume that there are not sub-standard or incompetent teachers. If our education system is doing such a great job why is the United States falling behind in education compared to the rest of the world? I've NEVER seen better performance by any employees strictly because they are protected by a strong union.
DeleteBut I certainly have seen employees after they have been fired that wished they had a union
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DeletePeter I would like to very much like to agree with you, Unfortunately,, they don't reply as you say. They silently respond only to those who's parents are elite or have money and find that if you are neither,, this is the normal response. Take it home, have your parents help you with it. I laugh at this, i am not the teacher, and that is what they are paid to do, not send all there work home to be completed by tomorrow by parents. Now if it was that they did there jobs in school without discretion then I for one would be for the protection they feel they need to keep there jobs.
ReplyDeleteI really wish that I knew how to feel about this. I am the parent of two children whose academic success in High School was nothing short of phenomenal. My son was in the top 10% of his class of 300 + and will graduate in 4 years with his Bachelors from Kansas State. My daughter is in her Junior year of High School and in the top 1% of her class and has hundreds of offers from Colleges to attend under full scholarship. Their accomplishments have been made possible by a few scattered teachers and mentors. Education is of the highest priority in our home. Now the back story. Both children attended a public school and were plagued with tenured teachers that did not deserve the position they occupied. Issues such as using profanity, demeaning comments meant to insult and undermine children's mental and emotional state, sexism, racial commentary, political positioning to say the worst. One teacher in a email discussion about an assignment replied with 5 sentences that included more than 10 misspelled words and my personal pet peeve the use of "irregardless" as a word. We honor those that have allowed our children to grow and become successful citizens of society, but I am disgusted at the protection given to the ones whose presence has done nothing more than present an example of "what not to become" Teachers are the most important profession in my opinion. After all I found this post on my facebook page because I retain a relationship with my high school counselor 30 years ago. Somewhere, in between our legislatures strides to balance the budget and provide a future for our youth, lies the answer. I hope somehow we can find it before my grandchildren reach school age level.
ReplyDeleteThe challenge is that we can't just provide due process for some. I share your frustration and anger with teachers who don't do their jobs, or who do them poorly. But removing tenure is no promise of improvement. With no job protections and no meaningful evaluation system, there's no guarantee than administration would not fire everybody EXCEPT the bad teachers that you want to get rid of.
DeleteThe process for getting rid of a teacher may not move as quickly as some prefer, but it exists. There will always be teachers who should not be in the profession, and they diminish the accomplishments of those who excel. But you will find there are administrators who do not initiate firing those teachers. Of course, some administrators worry about their jobs and prefer to do nothing. Tenure is not the problem and it should not be in a piece of legislation that should have been about funding schools. I think it will cost districts more by not having tenure because the likelihood of teachers suing the district will increase when they are fired. Amy Sirvanson--your children excelled because they are intelligent, they had support from their home, and they probably sought out the best teachers for their classes.
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