[edi581] Re: illiterate teachers
- From: "diana romeo" <dromeo@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: edi581@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 09:10:51 -0500
To: Jerry
cc: All of our class
Carl wrote: "Would the unions back Administrators in the dismissal of teachers
who had commited (sic) no other offense than just being very bad teachers?"
Jerry wrote: "
I hope not. It is NOT the job of the union. The main goal of any union is to
protect the RIGHTS of its members. It's clearly the ADMINISTRATION's job to
initiate the removal of teachers they deem to be incompetent."
-- I agree! I do not think "back the Administration in the removal..." implies
that the union would INITIATE the removal, however, I can see now that my
question, as stated, might be somewhat ambiguous. I did not mean to imply that
the union should take an active part in the process. The real question is would
the union passively "back the administration", by not fighting the dismissal,
if there was clear evidence that the teacher was not doing his or her job? From
what you say (I know of one district...that has gotten rid of many tenured
teachers whose skills were less than desireable"), it appears as though this is
already going on.
The job of any union is, indeed, to protect the RIGHTS of its members, but
when they fight to keep people in place who have no right to be there, they are
only cheating the majority of their members who take pride in their work and
(more than) earn their pay.
In one district with which I am very familiar, the union, for years, had a
local leadership which was very militant, felt their job was to be in an
contentiuos,adversarial relationship with the Administration, created constant
tension between Administration and teachers, issued numerous grievances over
inane and frivolous matters, and intimidated their own members, who disagreed
in any way with leadership policy or tactics. They were kept in power by a
conclave of "good ole boys" (and gals) who worked with them for years.
This same district now has leaders who are possibly even MORE militant when
it comes to protecting REAL rights of their members( Wow, do they go into
action!), but are much more professional, are willing to work with the
Administration toward common goals, and are not constantly bickering over
meaningless minutia. Because of this, they get a better hearing on real issues.
I was hoping that, perhaps, this was a microcosim of what is happening in
many places across the state and country, and your latest input encourages me
that this might be the case.
Teachers are the best people in the world (the fact that I have been madly
in love with one for 34 years does not influence this opinion), and GOOD
teachers are among the hardest working. Protecting teachers who are lazy,
incompetent, and have no right to be there, only serves to to stigmatize all
teachers, and gives ammunition to the mean spirited detractors of teachers and
teacher unions and their fallacious stereotypes. Getting these people out, in
the long run, will be a very good thing for all the other teachers. I'm glad
this is finally starting to happen. It also PROVES that tenure does not HAVE TO
protect bad teachers.
P.S. Thank you for correcting me on "committed". I know how to spell this
word. It was one of the "typos" I occasionally let through, as alluded to in my
original message. You do not need to correct this message, but if you feel
compelled to do so, you may.
Carl
--
--------- Original Message ---------
DATE: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 13:42:51
From: JerryTaylr@xxxxxxx
To: edi581@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc:
>Carl wrote:
>>...one does not need to be judgemental to conclude that the
>>above is an illiterate atrocity by someone who has no command of proper
>>grammar, and is purportedly TEACHING English to young children.
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>For another take on this topic, go to:
>
> <A
> HREF="http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/taylor/topics/";>http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/taylor/topics/</A>
>
>Click on "Bad spelling on listservs."
>
>Jerry
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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