New teachers and old, a little history

Subj: RE: Teacher job retention? Toledo Plan Scam and stress -- notes I wrote to a listserve about the Toledo Plan -- and its effect on new teachers.

We (all teachers and teacher-advocates everywhere) need a discussion on this.

OF COURSE unions were established to defend teachers -- so teachers were not dismissed at the whim of their boss.

Chicago has tried a myriad of schemes to rid themselves of 'bad teachers' -- about which I can tell you plenty. They got rid of teacher seniority in 1995 with the School Amendatory Act, when every teacher had to reapply for a job if they were displaced. We have seen intervention, reengineering and now Renaissance 2010, the charter schools initiative.

The one that sounds MOST like Toledo was 're-engineering' -- teachers sit on the panel to decide who stays and who goes . The CTU Secretary at the time, Pam Massarsky, defended at a delegates meeting, thundering, but YOU know who the bad teachers are! Massarsky lost her job the next year, and reengineering got a new package.

But the 'reform', ' school improvement' has the same attraction as the old 'team concept' tactics used in auto and other industries. Who HASN'T had a basic need to have their work be valued? For team concept, they used workers' impulse to tell the boss how to run things better -- to shrink the workforce and destroy unions.

Same here. The elephant in the room is, EVERYONE has either HAD, KNOWN, or BEEN or been afraid of becoming that bad, burnt-out, defensive teacher, the alcoholic, the one on autopilot, the one who got off the line, or out of the classroom, because it was too hard, and had a cushy non-teaching job telling others what to do.

The question is not, how do you get rid of 'bad teachers.' The question is, what kind of institution is it that CREATES 'bad teachers', DESTROYS its workforce, UNDERMINES and demoralizes its workers, sets up the perfect laboratory conditions for stress -- all the responsibility, no power -- and then wonders, why can't we get, or keep, good teachers?

I worked at a Chicago school where my life was made hell because I served as school delegate. I jumped-- to a 'failing school' (low scores)which had two more years before it closed. I was 'displaced' along with the other 9 teachers still there, because I didn't have the savvy to QUIT on my kids working for graduation, and jump to a different school. I worked for a year as a reassigned teacher, getting my salary but tagged as a 'failing' teacher. I went to job fair after job fair, set up not to get teachers jobs, but as shapeups where the principals could look over the pool of available labor. When I didn't land a regular job I was " honorably discharged", too young to retire, but with no position. Day in and day out, when I work as a sub, a teacher or a student pulls me aside and says -- ' you're a real teacher, aren't you?" And after the demoralizing experience of being in a closing school, I get the even MORE fun experience of being a sub, where kids are in a dysfunctional school, and the one person it's ok to pick on is the sub.

We won't be able to deal with the ghost of 'bad teachers' until we start asking, Bad , how? You mean burnt out, exhausted, demoralized? And how, pray tell, did they get that way? Were they told, perhaps, that they could triumph if they were Supermen and -women? That they were Better than those other, older traditional, teachers? That the first thing they must do is disregard all but the Authorized Experienced teachers who were friends of the boss(Principal, Superintendent, overseers) and OF COURSE anti-union, because the union protected bad teachers..

I ramble, but you get the idea. Go try googling 'teacher stress' and you either get articles on 'bad' teachers' or one of those hints pages which say things like. ' don't overdo. Work smarter, not harder.' Uh huh.

Turnover? NCLB is the top pincer in a squeeze move. The steps are, add outside help and use the school budget to pay for it. Allow school choice, so the students with more clued-in parents transfer their student to other schools. Replace the principal. Replace the principal AND teachers. OR, close the school and open it under a new name -- new teachers, another four years time limit to show improvement, and one more shuffle to cut down the non-performing students - who just happen to be the ones with the hardest time jumping through bureaucratic hoops to stay in the new school. Result? Higher average scores.

If you are Chicago, you also manage to tear down public housing and gentrify the neighborhood. Magic -- new students, better scores. I cannot contain my disgust for this charade.