Saturday, July 09, 2011

Unions don't want any teacher fired, ever

Union Sues State to Stop Teacher Evaluations reports on another instance where teacher unions are fighting attempts to hold teachers accountable and fire bad teachers:

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New York's largest teachers union is suing the state Board of Regents over the state's new system for evaluating public-school teachers, a move that could derail plans by the city and hundreds of other school districts to start basing reviews on how well students perform on standardized tests.


In court papers filed in state Supreme Court late Monday, New York State United Teachers claimed that education officials violated the law when they gave school districts the option of assigning significantly more weight to state assessments in their annual reviews of teachers.


Under the law, teachers could lose their jobs if their students continually fail to improve their scores on state standardized tests.


The union, a labor federation representing hundreds of thousands of teachers, claims that the regulations handed down by the Board of Regents run afoul of the evaluation law, which lawmakers approved last year and is set to take effect in July.
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I understand that there may be some situations in which some students will fail due to circumstances beyond the teacher's control, but if a class of students spend a full year with a teacher and they do worse on a set of standardize tests, then I think it is reasonable to fire the teacher and give another teacher a chance.

Hat tip: Waiting for Superman on Facebook

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