Some notable finger pointing over the past week: a list showing 90 unfilled teacher vacancies surfaced, prompting complaints of a teacher shortage caused by Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s firing 270 teachers this summer; the long-awaited schools modernization plan was criticized by the D.C. council as incomplete and lacking community input; and a Washington Teachers Union information session about the quagmired teachers’ contract negotiations descended into name-calling and shouting matches. Perhaps Post columnist Jay Mathews had the most grown-up solution: just fire them!
According to DCPS spokeswoman Dena Iverson, the vacancy list obtained by the Post is out of date, and the District is only aware of 42 current vacancies. “We expect the majority of the 42 open teaching positions to be filled within the next two weeks as we move teachers from under-enrolled schools to schools that exceeded enrollment expectations,” she told the Post. Most of the teachers who were fired were let go because they failed to meet a June 30 deadline to obtain Praxis certification. Currently, there are about 4,000 DCPS teachers working in 120 schools.
For the schools with vacancies, classes may be over-crowded above the 25 student limit imposed by the union, and teachers may be asked to give up planning periods to cover classes without teachers. As a former teacher, I can attest that having to use your planning period to cover for missing teachers is exhausting and frustrating. Having 40 kids in a single class period can be a nightmare. But anyone who can’t pass the notoriously easy Praxis teaching certification exam really shouldn’t be teaching. See for yourself.
The WTU has jumped on this story, emailing a WJLA video about the vacancies to its membership and protesting that had Rhee not fired 270 teachers, there wouldn’t be a shortage. WTU president George Parker said, “There seems to be a double standard for accountability. Teachers are held accountable, but the administration is not held accountable for something as basic as getting a teacher into a classroom.”
Photo by Fredo Alvarez
