Indianapolis takes action to reform/remove failing teachers

– Meanwhile, Kentucky continues the job protectionist status quo

The Indianapolis Star reports that its home city is taking strong action to confront the problem of unacceptably weak teachers in its classrooms.

Twenty-two of Indianapolis’ weakest teachers have been removed from their classrooms and will undergo a year of remedial development. The hope is that the performance of these under-performing teachers can be improved.

Next year, those teachers will return to classrooms under close observation probation. Probationary teachers who fail to measure up after their year of remedial work will be fired.

The article does omit an important point. It mentions the notorious “rubber rooms” in New York City. Those non-school locations were created as a sort of holding tank for seriously under-performing teachers. The under-performers report there every day to sit around doing nothing while still drawing pay. The rubber rooms were created because existing laws in New York made it difficult and expensive to fire a teacher for poor performance, but some New York City teachers simply could not be trusted with children.

Well, there is an update. New York City has had enough of the rubber room leeches and is now going to do whatever it takes to fire them, as well.

Unfortunately, we know that Kentucky has teacher problems, as well. With over 40,000 teachers in the state, it’s inevitable that a small number really don’t belong there. However, under the umbrella of an overly protectionist teachers’ union and the laws that union has been able to get passed, anything like the Indianapolis and New York City programs is unheard of in Kentucky.



In fact, House Bill 176, currently under debate, reinforces not only the teacher protectionism in existing laws but even the impact of local union contracts on individual school districts.

Sadly, there is a real downside to this even for Kentucky’s teachers.

Too often, the teacher evaluation process has become mostly a rubber stamp operation because nothing generally happens even if frank evaluations are conducted. This lack of candor deprives our teachers of important feedback that they might need to improve. So, teachers don’t get help as problems spiral out of control. That does a disservice to teachers and their students, too.

I do want to be clear on one point. I’d much rather see a weak teacher get help, improve and return to more effective teaching. A teacher willing to undergo more training to improve demonstrates a highly desirable attitude towards improvement, an attitude that should never be ignored. I am also not naive enough to ignore the fact that in any employer-employee situation there can be vendettas, so some teacher protections are certainly warranted.

However, the reality is that while Indianapolis is taking action, right now, to protect students from very seriously under-performing teachers, not one teacher in Kentucky has ever lost certification because of basic inability, or unwillingness, to teach. And, about the only way teachers get routinely and quickly removed from student contact in Kentucky is for flagrant violation of criminal statutes.

We don’t help our students, and we really don’t help our teachers, either, with our overly protectionist policies in Kentucky.