Geoffrey Canada: If bad teachers can't be fired, send them to upper middle class schools.

This is from the Aspen Ideas Festival. A very unique idea on what to do with all the "bad" teachers that are thought by the "reformers" to be destroying education.

The Video from Aspen Ideas Festival

It is 2:41 minutes long.

Also in the video he advocates firing everyone who doesn't "succeed" with these kids from disadvantaged homes. Trouble is he never seems to put responsibility on the kids, just on the adults around them.

Geoffrey Canada is the founder of the charter network called Harlem Children's Zone.

Canada is also the founder of a group called Learn-NY

That group advocates having mayors having complete control of the schools as Bloomberg does in NYC. They believe it is easier to get reform that way, bypassing the school boards.



Learn-NY is quite well-funded. Bill Gates gave millions from his personal money, not from the foundation.



With mayoral control of schools there is only one person who must be convinced to get on board with reforms, and there are no school boards to worry about.

is a great idea.

You know what puzzles me? Why do so many think bad teachers can't be fired? Of course they can, even tenured ones.

It is really propaganda used by the reformers.

Two districts Ive had first hand experience with, Ive seen the anecdotal evidence of this on multiple occasions. Two cases involved men who were inappropriate with girls (one eventually prosecuted) who were moved around like Catholic priests, and another involved a classified district employee who was untouchable despite a total disregard for rules and her working environment.

Anecdotes are not rules. But I can not anecdotally recall any teacher who wasn't let go for a reason besides budget cuts.

let go for reasons other than budget cuts.

and then placed on disability leave. Teachers can be let go, but they get a sort of due process before they are let go. It is not true that teachers with tenure cannot be let go.

You've heard stories. When you get to the real details, stories are often found to be half-truths or downright lies.

It is, in my personal experience, more likely that a teacher will be injured by a student than that the teacher will be a "bad" teacher.

One child's best teacher is another child's worst teacher. As for scores on objective tests, they correlate with the education of the parents I believe.

http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2010/07/video-hcz-founder-highlights-charter-firing-power.html

Did you hear the applause when he said that?

Unbelievable.

the Portland Public Schools that he was replaced (with a handy severance package) after two years.

He had come from the Atlanta public schools, where his great accomplishment was abolishing recess.

But let a public school teacher make a mistake and all hell breaks loose.

He was there for about 14 months of a 2 year contract and he spend 10 of those 14 months at conferences (paid for by the school district) out of town. So in reality he worked for about 4 months and then got a big fat severance package of about $500,000 over and above what he had already been paid. This is not a typo.

School administration is, in many cases, a parasitic scam.

It must run in the family. To give Jeff Canada his due, he advocates for kids and came to prominence in an area that was seriously messed up. I just don't think that his solutions, born of inner city decay and abandonment works in much of the US. Of course I say this with full knowledge that public education is dead in the US - it just hasn't had the grace to flatline yet.

by politicians who catered to the private sector and defunded public education.

...blood pressure. :7

You know...as a teacher...I spent 24 years trying to help students learn (along with the academics) responsibility, empathy, respect for others, problem solving and ways to communicate in a positive way during conflict. Making fun of others is not okay.

This person says he is an educator. Educators should be role models. The way he makes fun of teachers is disgusting to me and everything I stand for as an educator.

Our party leaders should step in and try to stop the denigration of teachers, but they won't. Many don't like the "reform", but they won't fight it.

...people are innovating and trying good things to help kids. The Harlem Children's Zone does good, I'm sure. But then this innovative leader goes out and talks like this.

In my classroom, I 'innovated' too...as I'm sure you did (pre-NCLB, of course :) ). I was rarely recognized...which is fine. But at least I (we teachers) deserve not to be made fun of.

Our Democratic Party leaders should definitely step in and stop this...the sooner the better. :hi:

OBSERVING TEACHERS AND WRITING UP THOSE FOUND DEFICIENT IN VARIOUS AND SUNDRY AREAS. DOCUMENTATION IS CRUCIAL, AS ARE THE PRINCIPALS' DETAILED REPORTS.

Principals must then OFFER SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT (UH-OH...A TASK FOR THEM!), PLUS A TIME-LINE.

THEN the principals must, you know, FOLLOW UP WITH MORE OBSERVATIONS AND MORE WRITE-UPS, WITH RECOMMENDATIONS and/or summary, to wit:

1. Teacher has sufficiently improved;
2. Teacher requires more attempts at improvement;
3. Teacher will be recommended for dismissal.

Door Number 3 will involve the union (in fact, the initial notification thst the teacher is being considered for this step will get the teacher union representation in further mtgs with the Administrator), which many principals are loathe to experience.

BUT IF THERE ARE "BAD" TEACHERS WHO ARE NOT "FIRED", IT IS BECAUSE THEY HAVE LAZY AND/OR INCOMPETENT ADMINISTRATORS.

Which is, I beleive, now a minority of states in the union.

Why is tenure important? Google Scopes Monkey trail and do the math.

Yes, it must be done - and firings can be done, too. But the principal needs the support of the superintendent and the board.
If the teacher happens to be the daughter of a board member, well, I'm sure you can figure how successful I was a getting rid of a teacher that needed to submit her "weekly newsletter" to me before it went home so that I could correct the spelling (and this was for a Kindergarten teacher!). She was also a "screamer" and had kids crying daily.
Since she needed one more "bad" observation from me, she was transferred to another building where the spineless wimp principal gave her satisfactory observations.
Our board wasn't a school board, it was an employment agency.

is the proposition that standardized test scores measure student and teacher success in school (and, by inference, success in life) since there is no quantifiable data to support such a position. The "reformers" positing this claim are the same political and financial interests responsible for the misery that exists in communities like Harlem. It takes surpassing credulity to believe that those interests have morphed from oppressor to savior.

Who needs data? :shrug:

You are right, no proof there is correlation.

... and then see what happens when so called "bad teachers" have motivated students in a supportive and well-funded school system with effective administrative support.

I think the test of his idea would not support the conclusion he wants to draw about teachers being wholly responsible for student's achievement (or rather, student test scores, which he thinks are the same thing).

WHAT?!?!?!? You mean the kids have to do something, too? Like maybe do a little schoolwork? Take a little responsibility for themselves and their own educations? Get to school on time? Get to school every day? Don't get high until after school? Pay a little attention to their teachers? OhNOEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(snark!)

Your "snark" is actually pretty much reality, I fear.

The reformers only blame the teachers. That's it. That way they can dismantle the public schools and look like effing heroes.

Of course we know this.

The myth that teacher's unions prevent firing is pervasive, isn't it?
What is the problem with using due process to fire employees???

Canada is an obvious freak. That's a laugh track in the background. Public school teachers that are 'failures' don't fall upward into a richer school district. That move is saved for repugs like l'il Georgie.
'Destroy the AFT and NEA' is a repug idea, though Dems aren't stopping it now. 'Destroy public education and steal the tax-dollars' is a repug idea. Bloomberg is a repug. And Gates is plotting to steal the public's education tax-dollars, though he is already obscenely rich -- typical repug idea and action.
The vast majority of teachers don't want a bad teacher to teach any kid, including wealthy kids. But in the repug propaganda universe, public school teachers are lazy and malevolent. They will proudly fail to perform their job, and upper middle classed people will be forced to provide them a living, to the detriment of their childrens' education. At least according to Canada.