By the spring of 2007, Roy Sachse’s boss had had it.
In a span of 18 months, a co-worker accused Sachse of cussing her out. A confiscated note suggested he wanted to meet a 14-year-old girl behind a Dumpster. A parent said he threatened to pull another girl’s pants down. Away from work, police arrested Sachse (pronounced SAX-see) on a charge of stealing a $5.95 sandwich — an arrest he was supposed to tell his boss about within 48 hours, but investigators said he did not.
[…]
In many workplaces, Sachse, now 49 and making $50,120 a year, would have been fired. But Sachse isn’t just any worker.
He’s a teacher. Teachers are rarely fired.
In Florida, most teachers have tenure, a status written into state law that gives them special legal protections. Most also have a union willing to wage a legal fight for them. The combination yields a firing process so tedious and time-consuming, districts rarely bother.
When teachers earned workplace protections in the early 20th century, tenure was intended as a shield against overbearing parents and heavy-handed school boards.
Supporters say the need remains. Just imagine, they say, what could happen to tenure-less science teachers in stretches of Florida where evolution is ridiculed.
But critics say tenure’s shield is too often extended to teachers who don’t deserve it.
Tenure = OUT.
Strong effective pro-education unions = IN.
I wish I didn’t have to care about what / how I do at my job. Summers off are nice also. Then again I have more ambition in life to babysit someone else’s snot-nosed brats.
Tenure is fine. Teachers signing on need to sign a clause that explicitly notes that actions detrimental to the interests of the student, teachers union and state will lead to being fired.
If the teacher really was trying to seduce a 14 year old then the teachers union should be the ones pressing charges along with the school and parents as they are responsible for this pedophile.
Tenure is not a license to break the law. It is only tenure in regards to things academic in nature.
To be fair to the educators, most serious schools and professors are in place to do, or lead, research. Students do the work and the profs write their names in the acknowledgment section of the text book.
To have powerful researchers increases a schools prestige, and the keep these types of researchers happy you have to give them a very wide berth so they’re not worrying about how the dean is a dick, or they themselves are assholes. So long as the research is good they can stay.
That being said, you’ll find assholes and criminals exploiting all levels of profession. In case you missed, some of the leading captains of the industry have just destroy the US. And they’re getting taxpayer money to “retain” the best and brightest. That’s what tenure is to do for education.
#1 “Strong effective pro-education unions = IN.”
Sounds like Microsoft Works. Or jumbo shrimp. Teachers unions do not have the interest of students in mind. They represent the interests of failed teachers.
What needs to be done in this guys place, is to tell the father of the 14 year old girl he wanted to meet behind a dumpster, where he lives. Problem solved.
Of course they could just have reasonable rules for when and how teachers can be fired, but that would just be common sense. Can’t have common sense in schools.
Tenure will not protect him from criminal action.
#4: You’re talking about colleges and universities. This is primarily about grade and high school.
“Can’t have common sense in schools.” Or, God or, Prayer or, good citizenship values or, anything that doesn’t steepen the slippery slope of personal and national degradation.
7,
Tenure for grade and high-school? That’s just crazy talk.
What the hell does a grade school / high-school teacher need tenure for?
#9: To keep from getting fired. Read the article.
It can be ammended. One want stability like the law intended, but criminal behavior in not good. Didn’t there used to be a morality clause in teachers contracts?
Elementary and high school teachers in New York State have been protected by tenure for years. The concept is to protect there jobs from the petty politics of the local school board. I have no problem with this. What does trouble me is that tenure is granted after three years of employment and is permanent. It is virtually impossible to remove a tenured teacher for poor job performance.
I have always felt that a modified tenured system would serve both parties well. Grant tenure after a three year probationary period. The tenure is effective for five years. At the end of that period the school board can grant another five years or, with cause, require a one year probationary period. If, after the one year period, the teacher does not correct the problem, he/she can be terminated.
I spent five years on our local school board. Many of our friends are teachers. Whenever I bring this idea up they go ballistic. This is a group that constantly complains about not being respected as professionals but when ever the discussion turns to “terms of employment” you would swear you were dealing with a group of teamsters.
In my public school district, a teacher will be fired for a DUII. How often does that happen in the private sector?
Get rid of tenure (brought to you by the Union). Also, dump the Union. ATF membership went from ~60,000 in 1960 to more than 200,000 by 1970. Schools have been sliding into the toilet ever since.
10,
I was being a bit glib Uncy Dave…
My mom is a 3rd – 8th grade teacher at a tiny little school in the middle of nowhere. The K-2nd teacher is an absolute LUNATIC. She does nothing but scream and yell at her kids because she has no ability to control them whatsoever. Practically every student she sends my mom isn’t anywhere near the level they’re supposed to be. So she’s a shit teacher, so she gets fired right? Wrong. They’re having to sit on their hands and gather evidence while this lunatic continues to fuck up more kids because the process to fire her is such an absolute pain in the ass. Truth be told, if they caught her hitting her kids, it’d be better in the long run. She’d be gone a lot quicker.
Oh, and my mom might lose her job around the end of next year because of budget cuts. But the lunatic will stay on due to seniority. Fuck tenure.
This is a double edged sword. Teachers NEED protection. They have to put up with more threats of false allegations, shenanigans, and other BS nonsense than any other profession. On the other hand, handing those protections to obviously bad apples is stupid and it’s why they’re probably going to loose them.
# 17 Breetai said, “Teachers NEED protection. ”
Protection to not be accountable for producing what they are paid to produce?
We need this dialog, and it needs to go national. If the teacher’s unions feel that major modifications to tenure will be forced down their throats by angry legislators, the unions will come up with palatable plans on their own.
Tenure and teachers unions are there to protect the incompetent.
If it went back to being a competitive professional market, salaries would rise dramatically for the best teachers and significantly for the rest. School administrators would have to spend more on teachers than construction boondoggles and lining their own pockets.
I have no problem with putting academic freedom protections in place for professors at the college level. That’s not the same thing as blanket tenure.
Protection to not be accountable for producing what they are paid to produce?
How do you measure their production without meaningful metrics? Everybody has stories about horrible or great teachers, but it isn’t and shouldn’t be a personality contest.
Standardized testing, as it is implemented, is completely useless because, due to political correctness, you can’t adjust the results based on environmental factors. Take two equally qualified (or equally unqualified) teachers: place one in an affluent suburban school and the other in an inner city ghetto warehouse, and see which group learns more. Not the fault of the kids, but certainly not the fault of the teachers either.
# 21 ubiquitous talking head said, “How do you measure their production without meaningful metrics?”
Testing based on the district. It has to be done at the local level, not state or Fed.
#22, Cow-Patty, Ignorant Shit Talking Sociopath, Retired Mall Rent-A-Cop, Pretend Constitutional Scholar, Fake California Labor Law Expert, Pseudo Military Historian, Phony Climate Scientist, and Real Leading Troll Extraordinare,
And what would you do when there are no similar classes to compare to? Our district has one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school.
Once again you are talking out your ass, not caring about the size of brush you are using to denigrate others.
Remember, the teachers do not pick their students. The teachers do not pick the socio-economic condition of their students. The teachers do not pick what or if the students have had breakfast or lunch that day. The teachers do not pick the classroom they teach in. The teachers do not pick the condition of the school. The teachers do not pick how many gang bangers and drug dealers are hanging around outside the school. The teachers do not pick the books they will use. The teachers do not pick the course curriculum. The teachers do not pick the hours the students will be taught. The teachers do not pick the days the students will come to class. The teachers do not pick who will decide and implement sanctions for disruptive behavior. The teachers do not pick the standardized testing you want to use to compare them.
But for some reason it is always the teacher’s fault.
As for the teacher mentioned, how many criminal charges has he been found guilty of?
I understand that the right wing nuts like to bypass the Constitution and just send every accused person to hell, but he is still innocent unto proven guilty.
The problem is this case and in most cases is the administration. They could fire this person if they wern’t too lazy to go through all of the steps. In my district, if there is any suggestion of improprietry with a student, that teacher is taken out of the classroom. If it is found to be true, they are fired. Also, as usuall, we are not hearing both sides. There has to be at least some investigation before they fire someone.
I’m really sick of the metrics issue.
We do our best to measure difficult-to-measure, multi-variable performance stats in my job. The results aren’t perfect, but they are informative, and if some individual is consistently measured short, they are FIRED. The situation is far from unique – I’d imagine it exists in almost every salaried position with very few exceptions.
The fact that teachers consistently argue that their performance is somehow unmeasurable frankly turns my stomach. So are they contributing NOTHING? Are their jobs, and the impact they have, utterly MEANINGLESS? I don’t think so. Teachers should stop pretending that it is so when it suits them.
Stop the CYA act, teachers. Nobody is fooled.
Give teachers higher pay, longer hours, and ACCOUNTABILITY.
I’ve worked 18 years for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in the USA. It also serves a student population that is mostly poor to lower middel-class minorities.
Half the things Fusion states that teachers DON’T do, may apply to his little 3-school district. But, they don’t apply to ours.
The teachers in our district DO get a say, either directly or via their union, on many of the things teachers(according to him)don’t.
As to this post, Teachers and Administrators get away with crap, that I, as a Classified employee, would get fired in a heartbeat for.
The District moves these problem employees to other schools (we call it the “dance of the lemons”) and 8 out of 10 times they go back to their bad habits. It takes a major effort to fire them.
It’s a combination of tenure and a dominate teacher’s union that’s the real problem. But, yet without them, many good teachers would fall victim to bad administrators and parents.
A catch-22…
#26, bob,
We do our best to measure difficult-to-measure, multi-variable performance stats in my job.
So are you the one measuring or being measured. If you are being measured, how much control do you have over your job? Are you doing the exact same as the guy beside you?
The fact that teachers consistently argue that their performance is somehow unmeasurable frankly turns my stomach. So are they contributing NOTHING? Are their jobs, and the impact they have, utterly MEANINGLESS?
Anything can be measured. That isn’t the issue. The issue is comparing MacIntosh apples with Granny Smith, Red Delicious, and Spy apples. They might all be apples, but they don’t all make great pies or eating apples.
Really great teachers deserve really great pay/rewards!
I remember the best, you could hardly get into their classes. The not so good ones should have gotten another job.
What is the real function of tenure? OK, so they keep their jobs… but cut their pay or benefits and give it to the best performers..
Isn’t that how it is supposed to work? ‘Teacher of the month’ gets the close-in parking spot?
>Strong effective pro-education unions = IN.
A union by definition is interested in protecting the leadership, and its own members to the point where the leaders are reelected.
1 in 3000 teachers with tenure fired every year. Even Bill Maher is breaking with the liberal line.