The Houston Chronicle reported last week on some remarks Steve Jobs (Apple Inc. CEO) had about public education. Steve said that no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers.
Steve Jobs explained that "I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way."
A couple years back some friends of ours had a child in a local public elementary school. The teacher was bad. We're talking bad like evil. The teacher picked on children, and told them horrible lies designed to frighten a particular child. For years the administration had tried to get rid of the teacher. Students from decades ago who had had this teacher came to testify about how bad the teacher was. The school had trouble firing the teacher. Finally a new principle was able to convince the teacher to take early retirement.
This took way too much effort. Hundreds of children had a poor education. Dozens of children were emotionally scarred. My understanding is the school district spent over a million dollars, just to fire this one teacher.
Public education would improve if bad, and even marginal, teachers could be fired. Other teachers would be more motivated and the students wouldn't suffer.
(Hat tip: Goldwater Institute)
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Technorati tags: education, public education, Steve Jobs, teacher, teacher unions
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