Why it’s so hard to fire bad teachers

By Rachel Mendleson - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 7:30 AM - 53 Comments

Brendan Menuey: The transfer solution is known as 'passing the trash'

What it took for one Ontario principal to rid her school of an incompetent teacher is a process she’s not fond of revisiting. It began in September 2007, when she inherited a teacher whose performance was already under review. Despite a file thick with evidence of inadequacy, the principal helped draft an “improvement plan”—a requirement in the provincial Education Act—and dipped into school funds to pay for substitutes while the struggling teacher attended workshops. But, says the junior school principal, it soon emerged that there was “a serious, basic problem of not understanding”—which continued even after the teacher knew she was under review. Students shuffled through reading levels without proof of assessment. Parents complained about spelling test words that weren’t sent home. And the teacher submitted grades for computer class when, in fact, her “inability to use technology” meant the monitors “were rarely turned on,” says the principal. Still, it took months of paperwork and meetings with union representatives before she was able to inch even one step closer to dismissal. “It was very upsetting,” she says. “I wouldn’t choose to do it again unless I absolutely had to.”

Inadequate teaching has been shown to contribute to dropout rates, low test scores and a dislike for school. So severe are the implications, says Brendan Menuey, an assistant principal in Virginia, that poor teaching is tantamount to “educational malpractice.” Yet in Canada, teacher incompetence prompts so few administrators to pursue termination that the Ontario principal insisted that not even the name of her school board be published, because it would almost certainly identify her. According to Barrie Bennett, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, the dismissal process is so onerous, the risk of reprisal from teachers’ unions so great, that “most principals find it’s not worth the effort.” Instead, they approve transfers, or hide struggling teachers where their deficiencies can go unnoticed. The result however, is this: a system that keeps incompetent teachers in the classroom. Continue…

Should teacher pay be based on student performance?

By Rachel Mendleson - Monday, February 9, 2009 at 10:52 AM - 14 Comments

Back in the fall of 2007, Barack Obama was vocal in his support of merit-pay for teachers. “If you excel at helping your students achieve success, your success will be valued and rewarded as well,” he told a crowd of teachers in Philadelphia. In doing so, Obama reignited the debate, one that has been bandied about for decades, over whether student performance should affect a teacher’s compensation. A discussion, some say, that will soon make its way to Canada. “Parents have often said that some sort of teacher compensation for excellence would be a desirable thing,” says Elizabeth Bredberg, president of the Kelowna-based Society of the Advancement of Excellence in Education. Nearly 40 per cent of teachers surveyed by SAEE said the performance of their students should be a key factor in determining their pay. And yet, according to SAEE, there’s no proof that pay-for-performance programs make schools a better place.

Beyond the Grid: A Canadian Look at the Terrain of Teacher Compensation, evaluates the efficacy of six U.S. pay-for-performance programs, including a Denver school board initiative that Obama referenced on the campaign trail. The programs add bonuses or enhancements to the traditional model, which aligns pay with experience and qualifications. “There really is no robust linkage between incentive programs and student improvement,” she says. The study also raises concerns about the programs themselves. The trouble, says Bredberg, is that there is no hard-and-fast model for measuring teacher performance or student achievement. And no matter what mechanism a school district settles on, implementing it relies on frequent evaluation, often through standardized testing: “We may find ourselves really overburdened with the task of assessment, and really just teach to assessment,” she says.

Teachers unions, not surprisingly, are against offering monetary rewards for teacher performance. The fear, says Frank Bruseker, president of the Alberta Teachers Association, is that compensation for student achievement will keep teachers away from more difficult schools, and remove the incentive for working with struggling students. “As soon as you put something in place that can be manipulated, people will attempt to manipulate the system,” he says.

Despite support for merit-pay programs among many parents, Bredberg says opposition from Canadian teachers means government would be ill advised to push the issue. Unlike in the U.S., where belonging to a teachers’ federations is optional—in fact, some jurisdictions don’t even have any—in Canada, mandatory membership and a history of cohesiveness mean that teachers’ unions wield tremendous power. Bredberg recommends focusing on “less controversial and potentially more productive” alternatives. While the majority of teachers polled by SAEE were against having their performance assessed for compensation, Bredberg says they did express a desire for increased evaluation—be it from their peers or a mentor—for professional development. “Historically, teachers have been rather soloists,” she says. “But I think that’s changing.”