The Billion-Dollar Blame Game

Our profession has a problem with teacher quality.

Too many teachers have too little incentive or accountability to be excellent.

Minnesota, (where I finished my teacher preparation, earned my first license, and spent my first ten years as a teacher and administrator), the state earned a D- from the National Council on Teacher Quality. They also got blasted in the RTT scoring for not having a systematic way to deal with teacher quality. (I hope you're paying attention Colorado—with an overall NCTQ grade of D+.) The Star Tribune is not exactly a conservative bastion (check the frequent references to deleted postings), so when they call teacher quality a $250 Million weak spot, you know something's up.

The article is good, if formulaic. What's really fun is the collection of 290 comments that follow. The comments are entertaining for a bit before they become depressing. Try this selection:

Teacher:

As a teacher, I am grateful for the union for one reason: job security. As a public employee, my head would be on the chopping block the second the government needed money if there wasn't a system in place to protect me.

Retiree:

After 35 years in the trenches, I still don't know how a teacher could be evaluated accurately/honestly/objectively, but I'm sure it shouldn't be done by administrators, nor should it be based on student scores/grades.

Community Leader:

Just as a manufacturer can make a quality product out of improperly prepared and treated material, a teacher can't produce a quality product out out of improperly prepared children. Pressure is being applied in the wrong arena. Lazy parents - WAKE UP!

So the problem with schools is the government, the administrators, and the parents. As a teacher who once belonged to the AFT, the NEA, and Education Minnesota, I'll say it plainly. Our profession doesn't attract enough of the best, and we don't get rid of enough of the mediocre/worst.

Charter schools are far from perfect, but many of them are better on this issue than the states. According to the 2009 NCTQ report, no state meets the goal of making sure the dismissal process is, "expedient and fair to all parties." No state "nearly meets the goal" Of the 50 states, 44 get the lowest rating possible on this criterion. By contrast, many of the best charter schools have a clear vision and practice for enhancing overall teacher quality. If I could make one single reform nationwide, it would be this: make every building principal completely and personally responsible for hiring and firing teachers. If the school board determines that the principal is capricious or incompetent, then they should fire her or him. This shifts the burden of advocacy from students vs. teachers to teachers vs. principals. (Notice I didn't say administrators—high authority deserves high and transparent accountability.) This also puts the principal in the position of advocating for students and for teacher quality. I know that having firing authority made me a more careful and meticulous hiring authority.

Given the choice of trusting teacher quality to the traditional bureaucracy or the unions, I'd rather stop making the billion-dollar mistake.

Commenters, please tell me why we shouldn't try something new. Is protecting the jobs of marginal teachers and principals worth sacrificing the potential of some students?