Comments on: Obama and Duncan – Time to Rethink Seniority, Tenure, and Merit Pay

By: Mrs. Schafer

Mrs. Schafer — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:07:10 +0000

I work in the education system as and Instructional Assistant.

I have worked in this field 13 years. I am highly educated with

an emergency credential. I have chosen not to be a teacher

for personal reasons. I have worked with many teachers in

Special Education. I feel tenure should be eliminated.

I have seen bad teachers keep their jobs because of tenure

while, very good and dedicated teachers have been given pink

slips because of their seniority.

I don’t believe we should get rid of seniority because that would

not be fair. Many would use this as a way to favoritism. But, I do

believe teachers have to prove themselves. In the years I have

worked in Special Education, I have worked with many teachers.

I would say that only 2 merited their position. There

are teachers out there making 72 thousand a year. They

do what they want, they do not put their time in,

and they treat the Instructional Assistants poorly.

Instructional Assistants are the backbone to the system.

I have seen very few IA’s with poor performance.

This needs to all change for the benefit of the students

in the Special Education System.

This is my opinion. So many employees in the school

system feel the same but are afraid to voice their opinion

for one reason or another.

Another issue: I have worked with many good principals.

I have had one principal in the last 13 years that is

unapproachable. That should not be. The principals

in the school systems need to be researched as well.

There are principals out there who need a required coarse in

social skills and what is right and wrong to say.

These are my opinions that i thought should be heard.

Thank you so much for your dedicated time.

By: Joseph Thibault

Joseph Thibault — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:11:31 +0000

How they define and measure “teacher performance” is probably the most important aspect of all the new legislation and no one has put forth a solution yet.

I’m all for revamping the way that education is managed/delivered, but until a current student or teacher knows what high quality “teacher performance” looks like…we’re all outta luck.

By: Alfredo Leon

Alfredo Leon — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:40:42 +0000

Regarding the Higher Education new provisions, it is interesting to see that the major changes and “provision” are being done on the financial aid side. It is great that the efforts are being concentrated into giving students the economical resources needed to have a chance at a higher level of education, but at the same time, there are problems on the other side. Although now there is a higher demand of students to Community Colleges, South Florida finds itself in a crisis where the Institutions cannot provide service to these incoming students (http://tinyurl.com/nmuhek) – bottom line, your fixing one side, while the other side of the equation, is still broken.

Regarding Public Education, the only thing I have to wonder is… how are they going to collect the data, in order to provide these “performance bonuses”? Is it going to be the standardized tests that keep limiting the “teaching time” to a rather “test-taking teaching”? If this is the case, it will not matter if there is tenure, seniority or more merit, bottom line the education is still going to suffer. Although you have teachers that may be able to reach students more efficiently, they are reaching them to teach how to take a test.