NY Senate Votes That Your Old Horrible Teacher Should Be Fired

By Myles Tanzer Tue., Mar. 1 2011 at 5:37 PM

The New York Senate approved the repeal of the "Last In, First Out" policy for New York City school teachers in a vote today. The senate voted 10-8 in favor of a new policy that says teachers with seniority should not have precedence over their more junior coworkers. With Bloomberg planning to cut 5,000 teacher jobs soon, the policy is coming under heavy fire -- even by the mayor himself. The New York Post quotes the mayor as saying that the downsizing should be done "intelligently and not based on something that doesn't have anything to do with the quality of education."

It's easy to think of this in a personal context: Remember that middle-aged chemistry teacher who gave too much work and would never explain anything? Everyone would complain about being in her class because she was such a bad teacher. Well now she's older and still teaching at your high school. There are new teachers in her department now though. New teachers that use interactive materials in their lessons and spend time offering tutoring students after school. Under Bloomberg's budget gap correcting plan, the new awesome teacher could be fired while the old one coasts on the bad job she's been doing for 20 years.

In a regular workplace, this is a common sense decision. People should not get paid by a company for doing a bad job while firing better and younger underlings for doing a better job. "Who's the best worker?" should be the standard, not just, "Who has spent more years in the system?"

Supporters of "Last In, First Out" frequently make the point that half of teachers quit in five years. They think that young teachers shouldn't be given too much credit too fast. But if New York City wants its students to perform better, people should to understand that a good teacher for a short amount of time could be better than having a bad teacher that stays forever.

[Mtanzer]

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Venicelady

"If New York City wants its students to perform better, people should have to understand that a god teacher for a short amount of time could be better than a bad teachers that stays forever".

Well, that's not true anymore- NYC has a 25 year, age 55 clause negotiated by the union that allows a person to retire from teaching after doing so for 25 years and reaching the age of 55.

Now, what happens to the premise of the argument of this article when the younger teachers start to age and move up in salary scale? Will they now become "undesirable" in the eyes of the DOE, and be replaced by yet another crop of newer, younger bodies?

Why is it that in this country, we throw our older workers under the bus? In many other countries, older equates to being wiser and more experienced- younger people are considered to be on the path to becoming that way, once they are seasoned themselves.

This short sighted policy that the Mayor, and other politicians that think like him will surely result in the demolishment of the public school systems of America. If our Mayor is presupposing that the NYCDOE will continue to attract younger teachers, all those that are considering entering this profession will see their future, and decide to go into other, more profitable careers instead.

Dosen't appear to me that the Mayor is truly considering the future of the children of this city as he claims to be, by proposing such short sighted policies.

Venicelady

Perhaps I made a Freudian slip here- the word should be spelled as "good" NOT "god" in the first sentence of my comment.

Mea culpa.

Jjbpigglet

I have my children in public school and I was lucky enough to know that the teacher that taught my older son 12 years ago was still around to teach my younger son. If politicians really cared about the children that attend public schools their decisions on how to reform public education should not be a political one but one that will truly help our children get a good education. Not all parents can afford to pay for private schools. So we need the public schools to give our children the best education. Most Companies look for experienced workers; even restaurants prefer to hire experienced waiters or waitresses. But, when it comes to our children's education experience does not seem to be important, why? Everyone is blaming teachers but no one blames the Board of Education that is constantly changing programs or teaching philosophies. No one talks about the "whole language approach," that took phonics away and the results were that many children did not learn how to read. Teachers that wanted to teach phonics were either reprimanded, had a letter put on their file or a U rating. If teaching philosophies are constantly changing how will a teacher be rated as being an effective or ineffective teacher. If classrooms are being overcrowded and necessary resources are being taken away from schools how you can say a teacher is ineffective when she/he is not being supported and given to proper tools. If a carpenter is not given proper tools of course he will be an in ineffective carpenter. The question being: Is an effective teacher based on a particular criteria or is it based on the philosophy of the month?

Amerigus

This must be tempered - suppose they actually want to get rid of all older teachers to save millions for "tax revolt" voters.

Though I've only taught six years, the principal at our NYC school is far younger than me and has his head swimming with DOE rules and regulations so much, his eyeballs are going around in his head. He struggles to maintain the respect of wayward students in the school, making the whole school environment a challenge for everybody. If HE decides which experienced teachers are canned, it could be a matter of philosophy, personality, or chemistry - but suppose the teacher wasn't effective because the door was being kicked in everyday by wandering students. Will there be endless he said/she said tribunals? Will the union take up defenses case by case? Did they show Cathie Black how to make a rubric?

I am all for reform, I am all for efficiency in education AND government, but as our custodian would say, show me the fine print motherfather

took me 5 years to get skilled

It takes at least 5 years to become a 'great' teacher. The newest teachers may have potential but they are not better than the veterans.Also--most teachers who are 'failures' quit in the first 5 years. The ones who stay are usually at least ok and most are very good--especially after 10 years.But Bloomberg just wants to fire the most expensive teachers...quality is NOT his goal.