The "Education" Party?

[DGS49]

Senate sends Wolf bill that moves Pa. to allowing performance-based teacher layoffs

Pennsylvania legislators have crafted a bill that totally exposes the hypocrisy of both the teachers' unions and the Democrat Party.

It merely states that in making decisions on furloughs and re-hires, the school districts may consider teacher performance, rather than just seniority. It also provides that furloughs may be based on economic stress not caused by enrollment declines.

EVERY Democrat in the legislature voted against this bill. The two teachers' unions fought it vigorously. The Democrat governor promises to veto it. (In fact, it will never become law, because the Republicans do not hold a veto-proof majority in the legislature).

But why is it even controversial? Is it not axiomatic that THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE STUDENTS ARE MET BY HAVING THE BEST POSSIBLE GROUP OF TEACHERS teaching them? Do the Democrats truly believe that the best education is provided by the OLDEST teachers, regardless of performance?

What is the only conceivable objection to this proposed legislation? That the teacher evaluation may not be reliable?

Nonsense. Who does the evaluations? Principals and other administrators. THESE PEOPLE ALL USED TO BE TEACHERS! Are we to believe that somehow in the process of being promoted from teacher to Staff they have lost their ability to assess good teaching? How does that happen? It is preposterous.

Not to mention the fact that IN THE REAL WORLD people are evaluated subjectively every day of the week, and yet we all seem to survive it.

Although Pennsylvania is not The United States, you can bet that any similar legislation in any of the other 49 states (plus the District of Columbia) would meet a similar fate. Democrats and the teachers' unions would uniformly and almost unanimously oppose it.

Remember that next time you hear some Democrat politician or union president droning on and on about how dedicated they are to EDUCATION.

It is bullshit on steroids. They are dedicated to lining their own pockets.

 

[turzovka]

Senate sends Wolf bill that moves Pa. to allowing performance-based teacher layoffs

Pennsylvania legislators have crafted a bill that totally exposes the hypocrisy of both the teachers' unions and the Democrat Party.

It merely states that in making decisions on furloughs and re-hires, the school districts may consider teacher performance, rather than just seniority. It also provides that furloughs may be based on economic stress not caused by enrollment declines.

EVERY Democrat in the legislature voted against this bill. The two teachers' unions fought it vigorously. The Democrat governor promises to veto it. (In fact, it will never become law, because the Republicans do not hold a veto-proof majority in the legislature).

But why is it even controversial? Is it not axiomatic that THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE STUDENTS ARE MET BY HAVING THE BEST POSSIBLE GROUP OF TEACHERS teaching them? Do the Democrats truly believe that the best education is provided by the OLDEST teachers, regardless of performance?

What is the only conceivable objection to this proposed legislation? That the teacher evaluation may not be reliable?

Nonsense. Who does the evaluations? Principals and other administrators. THESE PEOPLE ALL USED TO BE TEACHERS! Are we to believe that somehow in the process of being promoted from teacher to Staff they have lost their ability to assess good teaching? How does that happen? It is preposterous.

Not to mention the fact that IN THE REAL WORLD people are evaluated subjectively every day of the week, and yet we all seem to survive it.

Although Pennsylvania is not The United States, you can bet that any similar legislation in any of the other 49 states (plus the District of Columbia) would meet a similar fate. Democrats and the teachers' unions would uniformly and almost unanimously oppose it.

Remember that next time you hear some Democrat politician or union president droning on and on about how dedicated they are to EDUCATION.

It is bullshit on steroids. They are dedicated to lining their own pockets.

A private business could never operate under teachers unions rules and policies and survive. Teachers, no matter how stressful their jobs can be, need to be accountable for their performance. And they are not. Just research major city schools how absolutely minuscule the number of teachers that have been dismissed over decades. Shameful.

http://www.teachersunionexposed.com/protecting.cfm

Consider New York City. The New York Daily News reports that “over the past three years [2007-2010], just 88 out of some 80,000 city schoolteachers have lost their jobs for poor performance.”

Things are no better in New York as a whole. The Albany Times Union looked at what was going on outside New York City and discovered some shocking data: Of 132,000 teachers, only 32 were fired for any reason between 2006 and 2011.

Or look at Chicago. In a school district that has by any measure failed its students — only 28.5 percent of 11th graders met or exceeded expectations on that state’s standardized tests — Newsweek reported that only 0.1 percent of teachers were dismissed for performance-related reasons between 2005 and 2008. When barely one in four students nearing graduation can read and do math, how is it possible that only one in one thousand teachers is worthy of dismissal?

In 2003, one Los Angeles union representative said: “If I’m representing them, it’s impossible to get them out. It’s impossible. Unless they commit a lewd act.” Unfortunately for the students who have to learn from these educators, virtually every teacher who works for the Los Angeles Unified School District receives tenure: In 2009, The Los Angeles Times reported that fewer than two percent of teachers are denied tenure during the two year probationary period after being hired. And once they have tenure, there’s no getting rid of them. And that’s in a school district where the graduation rate in 2003 was just 51 percent.

One New Jersey union representative was even blunter about the work his organization does to keep bad teachers in the classroom, saying: “I’ve gone in and defended teachers who shouldn’t even be pumping gas.”

 

[anotherlife]

The education party? I thought it was the student loan companies that need to buy more underwriting power in Washington.

 

[DGS49]

As expected, Governor Wolf (D) vetoed this entirely reasonable bill. QED.

A friend of mine was a member of the School Board in his local district, and once asked the HR Director how many 'unsatisfactory' performance ratings they had given out the previous year. The initial response was "I don't know," then after continually bugging him for a couple years, he finally owned up that they hadn't had any (500+ teachers).

"Are you the best screener of new employees in the history of the world, or is your performance review process a pointless waste of time and effort?"

No response.