OUR VIEW: Better standards are needed for teachers, but how?

Editorials

December 16, 2009

Anonymous The Tonawanda News Wed Dec 16, 2009, 12:45 AM EST

The Board of Regents has a proposal on the table that would encourage school reform and earn grants from the federal government. Because of the higher standards to which the proposal would hold teachers, the state teachers union and Legislature have balked at the plan.

The plan calls for teacher performance to be determined by student performance.

We believe higher standards for teachers are necessary, and first and foremost, tenure needs to be investigated, but we don’t think it should be tied to student performance.

Teachers can make a difference. They can turn students around in and out of the classroom. We all have heard great success stories of students doing a 180 because of a great teacher.

But on the flip side are students who will never be good or score well on tests. Now we’re saying that their teacher should be judged on that student’s actions, or inaction?

Plus, the composition of a teacher’s class changes from year to year. Some years, a teacher will say they have a really good class; others, not so much. That depends on the quality of the student and their willingness to learn.

You could have a really good teacher, who is dedicated in every sense of the word, with a really bad class that just doesn’t care.

Should that teacher lose his or her job because of those students?

Teaching is a profession in which it’s difficult to gauge performance when there are so many variables.

Plus, if a policy was set in motion that said teachers will be judged on the performance of their students, no one would take jobs in under-performing districts.

We also think tenure shouldn’t be granted after such a short time. Three years seems quick for job security. No other business or profession offers such guarantees.

Maybe tenure shouldn’t exist at all. It creates complacency and breeds teachers who get into the profession for all the wrong reasons.

Teachers should be held to a very high standard, no doubt about it. They should be judged on their performance in hybrid fashion — melding student performance, observation, dedication, participation and anything tangible that shows the work a teacher is or isn’t putting in.

If it’s all there, then there should be no reason to let that teacher go, tenure or not.

Let performance speak for itself and that should be the only standard and job security any teacher should need.

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