Teachers teach

Bram is diving into education at his blog. He is way out of his comfort zone, and that's okay from time to time.

I posted this at his blog.

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Here is the deal. Bad teachers should be fired. That needs to happen throughout time.

Good teachers in the wrong settings, perhaps, should be moved to different settings once or twice. But, PPS can't be keeping bad teachers.

There are very few bad teachers, but they are exist.

Furthermore, if we did fire bad teachers, then it would be easy to decide who needs to stay and who needs to go based upon years on the job.

Because some bad teachers have stayed too long, because of failures of middle and upper management, and because of a lack of peer review among teachers, we are in a mess.

Yes, teachers need to watch out for other teachers, helping and otherwise.

I wish there was more peer review and more peer pressure.

First, gang up on the teacher (among other teachers, staff and administration and even trusted parents) so that the challenges are overcome to make sure that the students are getting good opportunities, making progress and successes are delivered.

But by the end of the year, the staff needs to realize that the hand holding can't be forever.

Sadly, when a teacher is floundering, they don't get the help. And in due time, they don't get the next assignment nor the boot.

Bad teachers that linger are hurting public education, PPS and the Teachers Union. IMNH, good and great teachers have to carry some (say 5%) of the blame. The principals get the lion's share of the blame. Central Admin gets some too.

Great teachers know what's going on in their buildings.

Ask how much impact in all the rubics outlined in the blog posting are with peer review?