Proposition 74
My take on CA Proposition 74 -
Yes
This is part of my ongoing series of posts on
each of the Propositions we'll be voting on. Here is the
original post, with my ground rules for evaluating propositions, my
scorecard and links to each of my
arguments.
Proposition 74 - Yes
Summary - This proposition would do two things - change the probationary period for teachers from 2 years to 5 years, and make it easier to fire teachers with consistently poor evaluations.
Commentary - Our current public school system uses a 2 year probationary period before granting a teacher tenure. Once a teacher is tenured, they are nearly impossible to fire. This means in the first two years of their career, a school must determine the career long capability and competence of a young teacher. If they get it right, public school kids get a good teacher for a long time. If they get it wrong, class after class suffers through a poor teacher when they could have had someone better suited to the job.
If there is one thing that the past centuries of the free market has shown it is that the market is rather competent at assessing ability and acumen. The better software engineers get and keep the better jobs at better rates of pay. People who are poor at customer service get fired from their job answering phones, and in turn are forced into an industry for which they are better suited. Where all of this comes to a screeching halt is in those industries controlled by unions. Here, the only qualification is how long you've been doing something.
The main problem with this system is that at some point (now 2 years, but this prop would make it 5) you have to be able to tell that this person is going to do a good job FOR LIFE. If I ran a business and had a particularly stellar employee, I might be willing to sign that person for life simply to lock them into my business - like a professional athlete. But even in this strange case, I doubt I would sign even a particularly amazing employee for life because you never know what might change. In fact, even in my professional athlete example it breaks down - the best players are signed to long contracts, but never to life contracts. However, while someone may conceivably want to do this with a single excellent employee, it is craziness to attempt this with every employee. There is no need to, it doesn't lock them in (only locks you in), and for any mediocre to poor employee this amounts to carte blanche for them to do virtually nothing.
This is a bad idea in any industry, but when it comes to teaching public school kids, its very dangerous.
I asked my mom about this prop, because she has a lifetime of experience in education - PhD in education, long time teacher (including being up for CA teacher of the year), principal, vice-principal, and even worked for the district. My mom is one of the biggest supporters of education and schools there is. To my surprise, she expressed her vehement hatred for tenure. She reiterated how it is simply impossible to fire a teacher after they have tenure - basically they must do something illegal, or you must document that they teach poorly over a period of 3-4 years. Lastly, she felt that tenure made good teachers worse and bad teachers awful because it sends the message that no matter what you do, you won't lose your job.
This points out something that I didn't think about when I first examined this prop. I will grant that my initial fear was that perhaps we would attract less qualified teachers in CA because other states would be offering such better tenure packages. But the more I thought about it, and hearing my mom's hatred of tenure, I realized that good teachers don't like tenure. Good teachers love their job and love kids and tenure means that the teacher in the next classroom who loves neither will stay longer and further drag down people's conception of teachers. Good teachers are good, and want to be judged on their merits. Having a strong tenure means attracting teachers that are looking for an easy job that they can never lose.
The last thing I wanted to point out is that we have a limited number of teaching positions. There are only so many classes in so many schools across the state. Add into that mix the fact that bad teachers cannot ever be removed from their spot, and it means we might very well be blocking some great teachers from getting employed in CA. This is something that people rarely think about when it comes to props like this - tenure could very well be blocking a host of very good teachers because there are simply no spots left for them to fill. We can't have a meritocracy in education if there are some candidates we simply can't look at, and others we simply can't rule out.
Proposition 74 - Yes
Summary - This proposition would do two things - change the probationary period for teachers from 2 years to 5 years, and make it easier to fire teachers with consistently poor evaluations.
Commentary - Our current public school system uses a 2 year probationary period before granting a teacher tenure. Once a teacher is tenured, they are nearly impossible to fire. This means in the first two years of their career, a school must determine the career long capability and competence of a young teacher. If they get it right, public school kids get a good teacher for a long time. If they get it wrong, class after class suffers through a poor teacher when they could have had someone better suited to the job.
If there is one thing that the past centuries of the free market has shown it is that the market is rather competent at assessing ability and acumen. The better software engineers get and keep the better jobs at better rates of pay. People who are poor at customer service get fired from their job answering phones, and in turn are forced into an industry for which they are better suited. Where all of this comes to a screeching halt is in those industries controlled by unions. Here, the only qualification is how long you've been doing something.
The main problem with this system is that at some point (now 2 years, but this prop would make it 5) you have to be able to tell that this person is going to do a good job FOR LIFE. If I ran a business and had a particularly stellar employee, I might be willing to sign that person for life simply to lock them into my business - like a professional athlete. But even in this strange case, I doubt I would sign even a particularly amazing employee for life because you never know what might change. In fact, even in my professional athlete example it breaks down - the best players are signed to long contracts, but never to life contracts. However, while someone may conceivably want to do this with a single excellent employee, it is craziness to attempt this with every employee. There is no need to, it doesn't lock them in (only locks you in), and for any mediocre to poor employee this amounts to carte blanche for them to do virtually nothing.
This is a bad idea in any industry, but when it comes to teaching public school kids, its very dangerous.
I asked my mom about this prop, because she has a lifetime of experience in education - PhD in education, long time teacher (including being up for CA teacher of the year), principal, vice-principal, and even worked for the district. My mom is one of the biggest supporters of education and schools there is. To my surprise, she expressed her vehement hatred for tenure. She reiterated how it is simply impossible to fire a teacher after they have tenure - basically they must do something illegal, or you must document that they teach poorly over a period of 3-4 years. Lastly, she felt that tenure made good teachers worse and bad teachers awful because it sends the message that no matter what you do, you won't lose your job.
This points out something that I didn't think about when I first examined this prop. I will grant that my initial fear was that perhaps we would attract less qualified teachers in CA because other states would be offering such better tenure packages. But the more I thought about it, and hearing my mom's hatred of tenure, I realized that good teachers don't like tenure. Good teachers love their job and love kids and tenure means that the teacher in the next classroom who loves neither will stay longer and further drag down people's conception of teachers. Good teachers are good, and want to be judged on their merits. Having a strong tenure means attracting teachers that are looking for an easy job that they can never lose.
The last thing I wanted to point out is that we have a limited number of teaching positions. There are only so many classes in so many schools across the state. Add into that mix the fact that bad teachers cannot ever be removed from their spot, and it means we might very well be blocking some great teachers from getting employed in CA. This is something that people rarely think about when it comes to props like this - tenure could very well be blocking a host of very good teachers because there are simply no spots left for them to fill. We can't have a meritocracy in education if there are some candidates we simply can't look at, and others we simply can't rule out.
Posted: Fri - November 4, 2005 at 06:05 AM | | | | | | |
Quick Links
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Highlighted posts
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Nov 04, 2005 07:03 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Nov 04, 2005 07:03 AM
Search
The Tip Jar
Counter provided by
Brought to you by
