Teachers have pursued their own interests at the expense of children
August 5, 2011 in Question of the Week, Spotlight Answers, Why is there so little faith in teachers? by Rick Donlon
Why do so many people seem to have so little faith in our teachers? Why do teachers matter? Tell us about a teacher who had a major positive impact on your life or the lives of your children.
Davis Guggenheim’s prophetic film, “Waiting for Superman,” correctly points out that Americans simultaneously revere teachers as heroes and understand them to be a significant cause of our nation’s educational failures.
We all can remember multiple teachers who inspired us to learn. We can also recall teachers who were lazy, mean, or dim-witted. This latter species is unfortunately too common in our public schools. In other settings, bad teachers are removed and replaced. In the Memphis City Schools, incompetent teachers are vigorously protected by a self-serving labor union: the Memphis Educational Association. The MEA attempts to cloak itself in rhetoric about the welfare of students, but in reality the union is primarily interested in protecting its own interests and those of its constituents. The MEA and its state affiliate, the Tennessee Education Association, have vigorously fought against critical educational reform strategies, including charter schools and tying teachers’ tenure or pay to student performance.
Unfortunately, teachers have lost a significant amount of their moral authority by pursuing their own economic and professional interests at the expense of children, especially poor children.
Teachers will regain that moral authority when they reject self-serving political hardball and agree to become an honest partner in solving our horrific educational problems.
The reform strategies you mention are not without their drawbacks and there are good reasons to oppose them.
For example, research shows that performance pay for teachers does not improve student achievement. The assumption behind the strategy is that teachers are lazy and could be doing more, but that is not the case for the vast majority of teachers. On pay, what the research says is that the baseline salary is so low that our best and brightest don’t even consider teaching as an option. In other words, we could get better candidates for teaching jobs by raising teacher pay, but paying teachers for higher scores has proven ineffective.
As for charter schools, they hurt our neighborhood schools by taking much of the best talent out of the neighborhood. (Same with the optional schools, by the way.) Think of how much better our neighborhood schools would be if all the kids in the neighborhood enrolled there! And then charters get to operate by a different set of rules. They are able to get rid of “problem students” much easier than regular schools, they are given more freedom to create their own policies, and they have a greater control over who can attend their school. They often turn away special education students. Many neighborhood schools have special education populations of 20%, but it’s hard to find a charter with 5%.
And I’m not one to defend the MEA, but there is a reason they assist bad teachers. First is that everyone deserves due process and there should be a good reason to fire someone. In addition, the low pay prevents the ability to save, which necessitates job security and tenure. Plus, there is no good research to support using standardized test scores to determine teacher performance. Finally, the current “reformers,” most of whom have either spent no time or very little time in a classroom, have simply not built any trust or good will with the teaching community. Such trust is needed to ensure that good teachers are not grouped in with the bad.
In sum, there are good reasons to oppose what the current crop of “reformers” are doing and especially how they are doing it. And maybe, just maybe, if the “reformers” didn’t look at teachers with such contempt, if they treated teachers with professional respect, maybe then reformers and teachers could work together to find the best way to improve education.
Sort of the same way that any victim gains ‘moral authority’ when they stop calling the police, and become ‘partners’ with criminals?
Because it is corruption that is to blame, make no mistake about it.
From principals whose arrests show up in the news with great regularity, to superintendents and administrators who rake in millions with under the table deals, to union leaders who live well from the collective monies taken from teachers for protection, to politicians who have been lobbied into selling out our children.
The effect of teachers who aren’t doing a good job pales in comparison to the power wielded by those who spend the most time with the children (parents and the media), and those who set the policies and handle the money.
If every bad teacher in America disappeared tomorrow and was magically replaced by a perfect teacher, absolutely nothing would improve.
In the face of the great venality of those who use the ‘Blame the teachers’ excuse as a smokescreen for their agenda, pedagogy is as helpless as any other victim of crime.