DID YOU KNOW That Teachers Need Time to Learn on the Job?

We are all searching for how to improve the educational system but gutting teacher tenure is not the solution.  Unfortunately this past week, Judge Rolf M. Treu ruled in Vergara v California, that California’s teacher tenure policies amounted to a violation of the students’ constitutional right to an equal education.  Tenure was originally instituted to protect teachers from arbitrary firings either  when there were staff changes or due to pregnancy or any other arbitrary reason.

"No matter how gifted the junior teacher, and no matter how grossly ineffective the senior teacher, the junior gifted one, who all parties agree is creating a positive atmosphere for his/ her students, is separated from them and a senior grossly ineffective one who all parties agree is harming the students entrusted to her/ him is left in place,"  Judge Treu wrote.

Sounds reasonable to say this but the real question is how often is this really the case.  Full disclosure I am a parent of two children: one boy and one girl.  I have a mother who is a community college teacher, a father who taught at the university level for several years but left the profession because it frustrated him too much (and that was over forty years ago) , and a full assortment of other close and extended family members who were or are either teachers or school staff .  

The particular experience that most resonates with me is my son’s kindergarten teacher.  She wasn’t very good.  At least not the year she taught my son.  But it turns out to have been only her second year as a teacher.  Four years later when it was my daughters turns to be in the same grade this same teacher was well on her way to becoming a really good teacher.  Teaching like most professions takes time to master.  Although the example the judge envisions can happen it is not as common as the opposite.  The much more common situation is more likely a grossly ineffective junior teacher teaching in the same school as a senior gifted teacher.

Dennis Van Roekel, the head of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, concurred with me when on the day the decision was announced he said in a statement. "Today's ruling would make it harder to attract and retain quality teachers in our classrooms and ignores all research that shows experience is a key factor in effective teaching."

One cannot solve the problem of poor working conditions in low income areas and their corresponding schools by blaming the teachers who end up working there for the whole host of societal problems those schools must deal with.  Doing so only further reduces interest in the teaching profession altogether.  

What do you think about this decision?