It's time to reform the seniority system in public education.

Congratulations to me on my stellar end-of-the-year evaluation today! I give myself a pat on the back, even though I feel that I know better how much learning has gone on in my classroom this year than any administrator who has stopped by--I've had only one formal observation this year, and a principal or assistant principal has dropped in my room for thirty seconds (usually for some other purpose than to observe me) maybe two or three times all year. I am not complaining--it would definitely stress me out if I had administrators in my classroom every other day, like some teachers and especially at some other schools--but I honestly wouldn't mind if they did pass by more often. After all, I do my job. I teach; my students learn. Some days are busier than others, some more productive than others, some better than others. That goes without saying. But I feel that I am a good teacher and that most of my students--the ones who give a damn--are learning. It is nice to hear it from an outside source, particularly the ones responsible for giving you a job, but I would believe it nonetheless.

So I was very pleased to sit down with the assistant principal in charge of my department and hear great things about myself and my teaching. That my students were engaged, that we had great interaction, that it was clear there was learning going on and that the students liked me, that we had good lines of communication open, that I was more than proficient in my level of French, that the class was well-organized and planned. All of that I expected, but was happy to hear from my superior nevertheless.

What upset me at the meeting was some news I got about what's happening to some other teachers even as I write. The A.P. was running about 15 minutes late for our meeting, because, as he told me when he came in, our principal asked him to be present for the surplus meetings they were having with certain teachers from our school who aren't coming back next year. I asked, half-kidding, half-dead serious, "I hope it's not me..." He assured me that no, I still had my job for next year, but that they had just had to meet with someone from my department who didn't, and that it was terrible, that they just hated having to do that, etc., etc. I certainly will not name any names on this website, but when I found out who was getting laid off for next year, it really upset me.

This individual is a friendly acquaintance of mine; he has always been very nice to me, we get along well. But that is not what disturbs me about his being laid off. After all, there are plenty of teachers who are friendly to me or even friends, who are lousy teachers and I know it. What disturbs me is that this is a good teacher. From everything I've heard from his students, he teaches, and they learn; he's kind of tough, as in they have to work to make a good grade in his class. They learn. My A.P. confirmed this--that he is a great teacher, that he had a very good evaluation, but that the numbers just weren't there for next year, and what with the budget cuts, they were going to have to let him go.

If all the other teachers of that subject were good, I would have to (regretfully) understand. He was the "new kid on the block"--he started either the same year as me, or the next year (I can't remember now, but I think it was the year after me). That's the way the seniority system works. Last to come in, first to leave. The thing is, he is, at least from what I've heard from students, probably the best teacher of that subject. Of the three teachers teaching it, there are two who are good, and one who does nothing. The one who does nothing has been teaching at our school for something like thirty years now. Well over twenty anyway. He's just putting in his time to retire, so he can make more during his retirement. But apparently that's not the only reason he does nothing in his classes. I have colleagues who were students here years ago, and they say that even back then, his classes did nothing. They watch American movies in English. They dance salsa. They play cards. They might learn a few words here and there...that's about it.

Yet he stays. First in, last to leave.

I have been willing to listen to suggestions for reforming the seniority system for quite a while, but this is the final straw. This is the nail in the coffin for me. What kind of sense does it make? While it's true that, for a good teacher--one who cares about teaching, cares about his/her subject area, cares about the students--experience does add to his/her value. Unless something changes drastically in my attitude toward my job in the years to come, I think I will deserve to be paid more the longer I am here, because experience will make me a better teacher. I think I was a relatively good teacher my first year; last year, I was better; this year, I am much better. So it's true. And, I think, those are the grounds upon which the seniority system rests.

But there's a major flaw in that system, and that is the assumption that all teachers will improve with years of experience, and that an experienced ("veteran") teacher is always and automatically preferable to a less experienced one. Because while, as I explained above, it is undoubtedly a good formula for dedicated teachers, it ignores the fact that sometimes (probably quite often) mediocre to bad teachers slip in and, mostly thanks to this system, stay in. So a lousy teacher who was hired many years ago, who was never much good to begin with and only grew lazier with time, just waiting for Fridays to collect his/her paycheck and waiting for the years to pass so he/she can retire in happy comfort, gets to keep his/her job while a younger, more dynamic, more enthusiastic teacher gets laid off as soon as the budget gets cut. It seems to mock the professed goal of public education: to ensure that all students, regardless of their parents' income or their background, have access to a quality education.

Public education was created, and exists, for that purpose. Or does it? Is it really just a government bureaucracy whose whole raison d'etre is to provide secure jobs for some people? I have to believe in the mission of public education in order to do my job and do it well. But when things like this happen all around you, you begin to waver in your faith in the system. If there were any justice--if public education's real goal was to educate all children, and they did everything in their power to make sure that goal was met--then the teacher they laid off this morning would be coming back next year, and the old "dead wood"--the one who's been here for 30 years and hasn't taught the whole time--would be gone. In fact, he would have been gone long ago.

Let me clarify a few things. I am a member of the union and in most matters, I do support the union. Like I've said before, they fight for our salaries and our benefits and our working conditions. Without them, we would be at the mercy of the School Board and/or the administrators at our school, with little or no recourse other than filing lawsuits on our own. I'm certain that our salaries would be even lower than they already are; that we would be even more overworked than we already are; and that our benefits would have hit the chopping block this year, if not long ago. I've watched our union fight for all of those things, and I am grateful for them, and that is why I pay $40 out of every meager paycheck to them--to show my support, and to make sure that they can keep fighting for those things so essential to my life.

But on this point--the tenure system--I will have to disagree with them. The nature of a union means that, sometimes unfortunately, they have to fight for all teachers, all members--even ones who don't do their job very well. Because that is the job of the union. Their support is fantastic when the teachers they support are good teachers doing their job. It's unfortunate that they have to defend bad teachers as well. It is a shame that they continue opposition to performance-based pay and to reforming the tenure system. Their defense of mediocre teachers means that administrators rarely dare to try to oust a teacher after the third year (or often even before), once tenure kicks in. It requires loads of paperwork to do it, and often years. They have to show documentation that they have done everything they possibly can to help that mediocre teacher become a better teacher, and that all of those efforts have failed. That requires hours and hours of observation, where they must document the teacher's shortcomings in the classroom, frequent meetings with that teacher, coming up with an improvement plan for the teacher, documenting how the teacher does not make progress on that plan, etc., etc. It is a lot of work to fire a teacher for poor performance. And even if they manage to document their case and fire the individual, very often that individual will come back with union lawyers to challenge the dismissal. Administrators are (like teachers) overworked as it is--especially now, when budget cuts have slimmed down their numbers as well as those of teachers. They don't have time to go through the long, stressful, time- and effort-consuming process of documenting the case to fire a teacher because he or she is a lousy teacher. So, instead, the dead wood stays. And when the budget gets the ax, as it has this year, and heads have to roll, rather than making a case to chop down the dead wood, they do what is easiest, and what is required by the union: they chop off the new, green branches. No matter if those new, green branches are sprouting fresh leaves while the old dead wood is rotting from the inside out.

Next year, I intend to get more involved with the union at my school to try to put in my voice towards changing this system. I have no doubt that it will be hard, if not impossible; my voice is not all that loud when we're talking about the union as a whole, thousands of members across Dade County. Nor do I think firing a teacher should be at the pleasure of one principal or administrator; it would almost certainly be abused. But why could we not come up with a system of firing ineffective teachers without the prohibitive long hours of paperwork? For example, having every administrator sign off, plus having peer review from several teachers or guidance counselors (who have nothing to gain or lose from that individual keeping or losing his/her job). While it can certainly happen that a teacher will have personal issues with one particular administrator, it does not happen nearly so often that a teacher will have personal issues with all administrators, plus their peers chosen at random. The only teachers I know with whom adminsitrators and most peers have problems are ones who truly are lousy teachers, don't do their jobs, and are unprofessional in their work ethic.

And they deserve to get fired.

Solidarity among teachers can only go so far. If a teacher is not doing his or her job, and students are not learning in his or her class, then that individual needs to find another profession.

We are here for the students. The students need to learn. And in order for them to learn, they need us to teach.