The Weekly Feed: Experimentation Edition
Morning Roundup: Change Edition
Former Blade Staffers Launch 'DC Agenda'
D.C. Insurance Dept. Denies Birth Control Coverage Meddling
Controversy Over Rhee Now to Include Sex, Congress
Yesterday evening, we received a tip from a DCPS high school teacher that nearly 20 teachers at their school received termination letters from their principal that afternoon, including the union building representative. This morning, Candi Peterson, a Washington Teachers' Union board member, has letters from two teachers on her blog, and while the exact number of teachers fired has not yet been announced, D.C. Wire reports that four types of school employees were terminated around the district:
Paraprofessionals who work with students, but did not attain the "highly qualified" standard required by federal law under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Teachers without a valid license.
Teachers who failed to meet the requirements of probation.
Teachers who were placed on 90-day improvement plans and who didn't show sufficient progress.
That some teachers are being let go shouldn't be a surprise. Earlier this year, about 150 teachers were placed on 90-day improvement plans, and last year 250 teachers and 500 teacher's aides who had failed to meet certification deadlines were terminated at the start of the summer.
What is interesting is who is being fired -- in the past, there has been vocal concern among older teachers that they would be targeted for layoffs, which doesn't appear to have been the case here. What we're hearing is that primarily younger teachers without tenure (i.e., less than three years teaching in DCPS) are being let go, including a number of first year teachers and some D.C. Teaching Fellows. (These teachers may have provisional licenses, and do not require the same interventions or extensive documentation necessary to dismiss tenured teachers.) However, it is at least a little surprising that so many young teachers were let go outright, given their limited experience, instead of being offered professional development or opportunities for improvement.
Teacher reactions vary. Some remaining teachers are concerned that some of the firings may have been politically motivated. A terminated teacher at the Columbia Heights Education Campus* says, "There have been several terminations that I know of where teachers were not even placed on any sort of improvement plan. (I was not on any sort of a plan...no 90-day, no anything...)."
Another reoccurring theme is that teachers' anger about the firings seems focused at their individual school administrations, rather than DCPS or Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. The same teacher quoted above said, "My frustration at the situation does not, as many of you suggest, have to do with Michelle Rhee or her mission. Instead, my frustration is focused entirely on the administration at CHEC, for the way that they are handling the firing process, and for the amount of truly amazing professionals they are terminating."
Another DCPS teacher-blogger added,
"Now, I don't agree with all of the terminations at my school. There's one teacher -- a first year DCTF -- who was really working hard and trying her best; she may not have been good, but I think she deserves the chance to improve. She was fired. And then there's another teacher -- a 25 year veteran -- who is never on time to class, shows movies at least once a week (not educational movies -- Shrek 2), and sits in the back of the room and reads the paper while her kids copy vocab words out of a text book. Oh, this is a physics class by the way. She was not fired. So, needless to say, I disagree with some of the firings. However...Sometimes people get fired... Heartless? Maybe. But we don't have an absolute right to a job."
This situation is still developing, so it's difficult to assess what happened across the district. Our sense is that while some of the firings may have been questionable, many others may have simply been procedural - teachers who had failed to receive certification, or meet improvement goals. And while firings are generally uncomfortable situations, it is important that principals have the ability to assemble what they see as the best possible staff for their students, even if there is disagreement over what that staff should look like. Any DCPS teachers have more information? Feel free to leave it in the comments.
*Full disclosure - I was a teacher at the Columbia Heights Education Campus from 2005-2007.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
See, the best part is that the young new hires who are eager to change the system and actually want to improve these kids' lives are being replaced by the tenured dust-farting fossils with seniority who couldn't give two $h!ts about anything except protecting their job. Bra f**king vo, DC. This will indeed be a long hot summer.
Too bad you can't fire students.
Or their "parents."
... we don't have an absolute right to a job.
That's it right there.
Concur. The vast sense of entitlement is disconcerting. However, if you're good, you shouldn't be axed while idiots are retained. I see the appeal in that argument.
She was fired. And then there's another teacher -- a 25 year veteran -- who is never on time to class, shows movies at least once a week (not educational movies -- Shrek 2), and sits in the back of the room and reads the paper while her kids copy vocab words out of a text book.
I think every school has at least one teacher like this. In my junior high, he was the "music teacher," Mr. Sweet. His class consisted of listening to Swinging Songs of the '70s and going through a lyric sheet and trying to spell out the missing words. That's it. If I ever have to listen to The Carpenters Greatest Hits again, I'll tear my own head off. A week before school let out, he actually let us play with the instruments he kept locked in the closet. I've always wondered what he had on the principal that kept him from getting his sorry ass fired.
Whenever a new superintendent comes in, they always promise to shake things up and make everyone re-apply for their jobs. Whatever happens with that? Because it seems kinda pointless to make the dust-farting career loafers re-apply for their jobs if you just give them back their old job anyway. Why havent these parasites been put out to pasture or, better yet, turned into glue?
I'm a perfect example of one who survived a DC school education. I had good and great teachers. I also had poor and terrible ones, but it was I, the individual who was the final product. The teachers themselves whether they were bad or good, tried to do what they were trained to do.
I wouldn't fire anyone unless they were abusing students, committing some other violent crime, obvious substance abuse, extreme tardiness, or something that really gets in the way of their teachings. This firing BS is just creating a frustrating bunch of ex-teachers.
isn't this inevitable given the declining enrollment?
Why is a teacher without a valid license hired in the first place? The government licenses teachers for a reason, if you don't have the license, you can't be a teacher. End of story.
In a perfect world, teachers are not hired unless/until they're certified. However...given that demand exceeds supply in DC, and given its history of having a pretty low bar, and given its screwed up calendar year that has principals hiring in July and August (quality teachers are hired elsewhere by May), you end up with unlicensed teachers (aka "warm bodies") filling classrooms in August.
Take it from someone in the biz: education belongs in the "laws and sausage" category.
No more teacher's dirty looks...
When we grew up and went to school there were certain teachers who would hurt the children in any way they could. By pouring their derision upon anything we did and exposing every weakness however carefully hidden by the kids. But in the town, it was well known when they got home at night, their fat and psychopathic wives would thrash them within inches of their lives.
Got it bad, so bad. I'm hot for Michelle Rhee.
We don't need no education!
That's what I like about these High School girls.
Ms. Brown/DCist:
I forgot to mention it earlier, this coverage of DC schools is very informative. No one else is covering this kind of stuff. It seems like all the coverage we get from the Post is broad policy type stuff and it seems like their only sources are school administrators and the teacher's union. It's really valuable to get real reporting like this. Please keep it up.
No matter what, the student loses out here. The bad teacher is kept - the student loses out. The good teacher goes - the student loses out. Another shakeup and unfamiliar faces at school - the student loses out. Another year of rebuilding relationships and trust, which is what a lot of learning in urban education is based on - the student falls further behind.
And at this point in the year, firing a teacher is not just firing them from one particular school. If that teacher was a good teacher and was fired arbitrarily or on a technicality, then what are the options to continue teaching, except at another school that thinks its acceptable to subordinate respect for a teacher and treat them like machine parts?
KittyLiteral - I don't buy that certification means anything. Many of the sit-down-and-read-the-paper teachers I know are the ones who are certified or have masters degrees. And a lot of the alternate certification or "highly qualified" teachers struggle mightily to get their bearings in the classroom. Education should be on a private school model - a knowledge of the subject area combined with a love and passion for it. A good teacher will figure out how to convey information, even if they don't know all the names for the techniques.