Morning Shots

(The final installment in a three-part series looking at the components of education, and what should be changed to achieve true reform.  Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.  -ed.)

In this final installment, we examine other aspects of teacher personnel practices, gender segregation and universal preschool to determine how these practices can impact student performance. 

-Teacher Tenure and Firing of Teachers:

   Pertinent Education Factor: Teacher Quality

No rules have been more destructive of teacher quality in public education over the past forty years than the rules that regulate teacher tenure and the related matter of the removal of teachers.  In California, teachers receive tenure after only two years of teaching.  Under the rules insisted upon by the teacher unions and agreed to by the state legislatures, the procedure which must be followed in order to remove a teacher on grounds of incompetency generally consists of an initial hearing, followed by two appeal hearings.  It is common for these three hearings to take place over a period of eighteen months (during which time the teacher must still be paid).  Some contracts require that a teacher ultimately found to be incompetent be given an opportunity to demonstrate the necessary degree of improvement, which has the effect of making the process practically interminable.  All such contracts afford the teacher the full gamut of due process rights, including the rights to be represented by an attorney and to have his or her attorney conduct all aspects of litigation ‘discovery.’  This litigation discovery commonly consists of written interrogatories, requests for production of documents, subpoenaing of documents, and the taking of oral depositions, under oath, of any person deemed to be relevant to the charge of incompetency or to the defense to the charge.  Even when the school district ultimately

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Los Angeles has taken a huge historic first ever anyplace step, with the formation last week of the LA Parents Union. Readers of this space may recall that a few weeks ago, I went off on a tear about how every entity in the LAUSD had power for one reason – they were unionized. And yet the one entity with the most the lose – parents – had no power. We did the math (we were able to because we didn’t go to an LAUSD middle school), and came out with… The Los Angeles Parents Union.

Every player in this multi-billion dollar game (and sadly, for everyone except parents, this is a game) calls themselves a “stakeholder.” Bullfeathers. To be a “stakeholder” in something, you must have something REAL at stake. If things go south, you must be at risk of losing something. No vulture currently picking at the carrion flesh that litters LAUSD – from the teachers unions to the school board – has anything at stake – they can’t even lose their jobs, in spite of LAUSD’s FEMA-level incompetence.

Only one group CAN and WILL lose their jobs – our kids.

The workforce is a competitive place (except for LAUSD where it takes 2 years to fire an actual dead person) and while LAUSD is struggling to learn how to teach 19th-century rudiments, we’re in a 21st century globally competitive economy. The kids in other countries are mocking our kids – and rightfully so – while they eat ourt lunch and prepare to take our jobs and economy.

Make no mistake, the future of your kids – and this country’s economy – lies in a competent education system. We ain’t got one. And while we assume America will continue to dominate and have a rising standard of living,

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Rafael Cordero Molina Elementary School is named after the founder and patron saint of Puerto Rico’s educational system. The commemorative title is appropriate because the school is located in the predominately Puerto Rican community of Camden. However, “El Santo Varon” Rafael Molina would weep if he saw how the school named after him is failing its students. Currently, it takes six years for students to graduate from Molina, and by that time most still do not know how to read or write.

Like nearly every other school in Camden this year, Molina Elementary failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Less than half the students passed the state proficiency test in language arts or math. According to No Child Left Behind, a school that fails to meet AYP entitles students to transfer to another school in the same school district. In spite of this federal mandate, not a single student has transferred out. Why? Because no adequate options exist for them.

Now, nineteen out of thirty Camden schools failed to make AYP and are labeled “in need of improvement.” Many of these schools have failed for the fifth year in a row. According to NCLB guidelines, that means every child enrolled at those schools – more than 12,000 of the district’s 16,000 students – are now eligible for a transfer.

Where can they all go? The handful of Camden schools that did succeed in making AYP are already stretched to capacity; they don’t have any more available seats. Transferring students to an outside school district seems like a reasonable option – in neighboring Cherry Hill, for instance, where more than 90% of students are proficient in math and reading. However, the only way to switch to a school in another district is through the Interdistrict Public School Choice Program (IPSCP). This

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