What Will Happen When Teachers Just Say "No" in a "Tenureless" World?

Where did this apple come from?

What will happen if teachers just say "no" and there is no tenure?  You probably already know.  You will be dependent upon the good will of your supervisors.  Suppose a teacher is needed to "volunteer" to teach a sixth class?  It pays money (which may take some time to roll in), but it may not be convenient.  You may have family commitments which outweigh your need for more money.  Don't tell me you can just say "no" and there won't be "payback" by some administrators in some schools.  And, even if there is not "payback" in some schools, teachers will most likely act on the premise that it is a real possibility.  

As it stands now, new teachers are usually the first ones asked to perform the less than desirable tasks.  Perhaps, it is felt that older teachers have already put in their time as gophers.  Perhaps, they don't run as fast anymore.  Perhaps they are no longer dependent upon the good will of administrators to receive their tenure.  They've worked their way up; they've earned a little more status.  Without tenure, career teachers have earned nothing.  They may be constantly "under the gun," under the beck and call of supervisors.

Suppose a teacher blows the whistle on violations of federal law governing services provided to students, administrative abuse of funds or something else.  Without tenure, teachers will have far fewer protections.  I'm guessing rather than suffer through a long process of seeking redress, most teachers will look the other way and shut up.  Who suffers then?   

Even With a Union and Protections, Teachers Make Easy Targets

Some would so lightly strip teachers of their due-process rights of tenure.  Even as it stands now, given all the protections in place for many teachers, abuses in the system are rife.  And many teachers are hesitant to step forward.  We all know we are easy targets.

Teachers are still targeted for fighting for federally-mandated special ed. services for their students.  Witness the case of Mr. Lirtzman.

Union activists still seem to be targeted for standing up to their principals.  Witness the case of the "Letter-Fraud" principal. 

Teachers are still harassed for reporting gross, administrator-driven abuses in Regents grading.  Witness the incidents at Cobble Hill School of American Studies.  

Teachers still need to flee toxic principals with unpredictable policies, such as prohibiting a little of that "Yankee Doodle Dee Dum."    

Female teachers still seem to face harassment from superiors on account of their pregnancies.  See Chicago and Louisiana.  

If teachers were stripped of tenure, or saw it curtailed, I am sure the abuse would only grow worse and fewer souls would be brave enough to counter it.  More teachers would stand silent.  Teachers would effectively be "incentivized," in the name of survival, to sit down and shut up.

Would this be best for students?  Would this be best for society?  Should we speed up the process of terminating a few possibly "bad eggs," if we ruin our entire basket in the process?  Answer these questions--without any fear of reprisal.

Choosing the "Right Type" of People to Evaluate Teachers

Something's gone terribly wrong in the system, so says Governor Cuomo.  He can't fathom how poor scores on a test meant to slaughter students, with cut scores set just so, can coexist alongside a largely effective teaching force.  It's "Baloney!"  

Surely, at least 62% of teachers must be rated ineffective to mesh with meager student passing rates of about 38%.  Otherwise the Governor's worldview is shattered.  If he can't trust school administrators to get the job done, he must hire outside assasins observers.     

But where will we find a new privileged class of people, slaphappy to fire people for pay, bounty hunters for the innocent?  A few came to mind.  Let me propose some possibilities across time and literature.  Here are their resumes in brief.

1. How about Judge Roy Bean?



Wait, better rethink that idea.  Although it might be fun to condemn teachers from the comfort of your favorite saloon, Bean would, doubtless, be a political liability on many counts.  To begin with, people might inquire why he's sporting a "rope burn" about his neck.  Most damning of all, although known as a "hanging judge," in reality, Judge Bean only sentenced two men to hang--and one, apparently, escaped.  This definitely would disappoint the Governor!  

2.  How about Senator Joseph McCarthy?

Leaving censure aside, he had a pretty good run for two years.  He had great fun harassing many "Fifth-Amendment communists."  Along the way, he also created a climate of fear which only further helped enforce an unhealthy conformity throughout the country.  "Have you no sense of decency, Sir?"  Does it even matter, if you can get the job done for the Governor?  



3.  Does a court of the Inquisition sound welcoming?

The courts of the Inquistion, like McCarthy, may have wrongly persecuted a few persons here and there (Galileo, for one, but at least he survived on a technicality called "recant").  When God or the Governor is on your side, mistakes can be forgiven and apologies accepted--centuries later.



4.  What about Victor Hugo's Javert?

Nope, won't do!  You may think he's too busy chasing down Jean Valjean, but the real problem lies elsewhere.  He has a conscience.  When he observes that his singular and obsessive nature has led him to persecute the most Christian of men, his worldview is demolished.  He can no longer perform his legal duties and act according to authority.  He cannot reconcile his insight into the nature of Jean Valjean with his singular duty to arrest; he experiences an internal crisis of gross proportions.  Instead of carrying out his duties, he chooses to commit suicide.  He, too, is a political liability waiting to happen.



5.  There's always Campbell Brown?

Now, I'm pretty sure we won't find her suffering any internal crises.  When the lewd acts of a few teachers justify in your mind the stripping of tenure from all teachers, it only goes to show that you don't think too deeply about moral issues.   Let's just call her Madame Javert, minus the internal crisis.  

   



Can't you just picture those merciless fingers figuratively wrapped around the throats of teachers everywhere?  A dynamic duo, no less!

6.  Perhaps Jenny Sedlis might be up for the job if Ms. Brown is too busy  with tenure suits.  

Ms. Sedlis seems to have skyrocketed to ed.-"reform" fame on the shoulders of Eva Moskowitz.  I'm  not sure if she has any credtentials in education.  I do know she attended Scripps College though and ran Ms. Moskowitz's NYC Council district office before going on to StudentsFirstNY.  These last two resume bits probably qualify her, in and of itself, for the title of ed. "reformatrix."  Although she may seem a little young and inexperienced to some veterans, she is the "go-to-gal" for teacher-bashing media quotes.  In my mind, if she doesn't have better credentials, it would be better if Sedlis Saidless.  Yet, for the very same reasons mentioned here, she could only be an asset to the Governor on his seemingly single-minded path of destroying the teaching profession.



7.  Have you heard of Arnaud Amalric?

Parlez-vous francais?  "Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaitra les siens."  It may sound prettier in French, but the bottom line is the same:  "Kill them all.  God will know his own!"  Just change "kill" to "fire," keep on a small percentage, preferably those who will work without tenure and quit before pensionable, and you're golden. 



8.  Khans "khan" do it on a grander scale!

If you're not timid of soul, throw the facade of justice to the wind and call in a Genghis Khan or a Tamerlane.  When you wish to slaughter the careers of so many educators, history teaches me the Mongols may be your men.  Think on a grand scale.  They put Arnaud Almaric to shame.  




9.  Would Lewis Carroll's the Queen of Hearts do?

Along the same train of thought, if you are an equal opportunity employer, perhaps, you would opt for a female of proven political stature.  She can just as easily  decree, "Off with their heads!"  What's not for the Governor to love?  Maybe someday, not today, she'll get her comparable pay!

              

10.  But how about the Governor, himself?

If you want a job done right, you might as well do it yourself!  He doesn't constitutionally control NY State education.  Yet,  he exercises great power.  He pulls many strings; one might as well be a figurative noose.  Why shouldn't our Governor be both the judge, jury and executioner?  Let's just call it expedited justice and be done with it!  Problem solved!

If Teachers Really Were the Bottom Third of a Rotten Barrel...

Nancy Gibbs, the editor of Time, made the assertion in the now-famous "Rotten Apples" edition that the U.S. draws its teachers primarily from the bottom third of graduating classes.  To begin with, I'm highly skeptical.  From where I stand and whenever I look at a room filled by my colleagues, I am certain that it is entirely false.  

But let's humor Ms. Gibbs for a moment and swallow her stats blindly.  It begs the question:  Why?  Why can't the profession attract more qualified people?  Why is it having a hard time attracting anyone these days?  She doesn't seem to consider these questions worthy of study.

If her assertion is true, why should it be used as an argument to further demean the profession?  Why should it be used to further bash teachers and strip them of their dignity?  Does she feel such actions will attract more qualified people to the profession?

And, if her assertion is true, the next logical question becomes:  Are these bottom-third teachers academically negligent?  Perhaps, yes,  Perhaps, no.  If yes, here is the next question to ask:  How much assistance will these teachers need to adequately fulfill their responsibilities?  Is it a little or is it a lot?  If it is a little, let help be provided in a friendly and non-challenging way.  If it is too much, perhaps, they need to be counseled out of the profession and replaced by an ATR who has been branded as a failure due to the simple misfortune of working in a failing school with failing children.  If a bottom-third teacher who is academically negligent  already has tenure, who is to blame?  It is surely not any teacher.  Only administrators can grant tenure.  Am I wrong?

Instead of following logical paths of reasoning, however, reformers seek to blanket target all teachers.  Yet, if the profession is attracting the academic dregs of society, which I still highly doubt, one needs to make the profession more attractive to the highly qualified.  Is this being done?  No.  The media makes its dough by glossing over the great things being done in classrooms in order to make room for the few sensationalist incidents that could sully the profession in the eyes of so many.

If anyone expects to attract highly qualified persons to our classrooms, teachers must be treated as professionals again.  Teachers might be better paid and their rights better protected.  Teachers might be better respected.  So far as I can tell so many of the self-dubbed "reformers" would rather Walmartize the profession.  

Does anyone entertain for a moment the hope that the top third is flocking to the profession?  If you think the TFA can act as a floating bottom of young teachers from elite institutions, working for no more than three years, without doing irreparable harm to the idea of a community school and the talent that develops with years of experience, then think again.  Will "reformers" be pleased to replace teachers with cold machines or will they keep waiting for the cream of the crop to pound down their doors--despite the tide of reform which drowns and demeans us all?  Instead of waiting, it might be smarter to ask, "Who is John Galt?"

Rotten Red Apples (Based on "Little Green Apples," 1968)

Rotten Red Apples (An Ed. Reformy Song of Pure Love) in the Wake of the Recent Time Article.

---

Well, I wake up in the morning
With dollar signs in my eyes
And she says hi
And I hurry to the charter board
While the kids are kicked out of their school, goodbye
And she reaches out and takes my hand
And squeezes it and says "can you give more mon'*?"
And I reach across with stacks of bills that warms her heart
And I see my morning sun
And if that's not loving me
Then all I've got to say

God didn't make rotten red apples
And they don't test for six days of New York public-school classroom time
There's no such thing as Common Core
Pearsonland and Walmart store, no test review slime
God didn't make rotten red apples
And they don't test for six days of New York public-school classroom time
And when kids scores are looking low
I think about all of her dough and it eases my mind

Sometimes I call her up at home, knowing she's busy
And ask if she could get away and meet me
At some secret ed. retreat
And I know she drops what she's doing and hurry's down to meet me
And I'm always late
She sits waiting patiently and smiles Broad at my money
Because she's made that way
And if that's not loving me
Then all I've got to say

God didn't make rotten red apples
And they don't close schools across the U.S.A. when the test score comes
There's no such thing as StudentsFirst
Mister Gates or his big purse, no C.C.** guns
God didn't make rotten red apples
And they don't test four six days of New York public school classroom time
And when kids scores are looking low
I think about all of her dough and it eases my mind

*money

  **Common Core

It's Impossible to Fire a Bad "Reformer"

In the mind of "reformers," the Time article "Rotten Apples" may be the greatest coup since Rhee graced the cover with broomstick in hand.  Apparently, the fact that non-elected, backers of charters and private schools (like David Welch) crusade against public-school teachers may be the best thing since sliced bread.  But what if it isn't?  Can the bakers be fired?

"Ineffective" teachers are a sore on the body politic.  But how can you define ineffective teachers?  If you see one, will you know one?  Here is the rub.  Is it based largely on student test scores in a strange world of Chetty-based "science."  How can you identify ineffective reformers?  There's no formula.  When it comes to their performance, they seem to have only formulas for Success (Academies)!

God help the teachers who work in high-needs classrooms in a world without tenure.  The author of the article in question, Edwards, makes note of now famous Pasadena teacher castigated by Vergara, former teacher of the year.  In my mind, a teacher cannot be highly effective free of his or her students.  The teacher is a head and the students make up the body.  Neither can function effectively without the other.  Even one highly disruptive student, the type to suffer expulsion at the hands of name-brand charter schools, can cause incredible chaos for the best teacher.  And what if public-school teachers contribute to life-altering progress in students' lives, but it is not registered in test performance?  The teacher will be buried under the dust heap of corporate reform.  

Nancy Gibbs, the editor of Time, states that "one Texas study found that cutting class size by 10 students was not as beneficial as even modest improvement in the teacher."  Nice study.  I would love to know if anyone with practical experience in a high-needs classroom with thirty-four students was part of that study.  Nice to make studies built on faulty samples, engineered to produce the results desired.   The system engineered by the "reformers" strikes hardest at teachers who have sacrificed higher incomes to help high-needs kids.  Despite their lofty goals, they will be denigrated, degraded and readily disposed of.  Worst of all, the achievement gap may widen to an abyss.  

A crying shame?  Yes...  But although some "reformers" may change their names and step back from the spotlight, in this world of demented ed. "reform," it is nearly impossible to fire a bad "reformer."  

The "Reformers" List of School Supplies

Do you hear the refrain, "If only schools could be supplied with highly-effective teachers..."?  Now, we hear it in the NYC tenure suits.  Teachers make convenient scapegoats.  "Reformers," with ears closed to teachers and parents, limited classroom experience of their own and seemingly unlimited hubris, dictate educational solutions detached from educational realities.

Tests, and the statistics they generate, are high on their list of educational supplies.  Tests are supposed to be objective measures of student and teacher performance, but they are anything but that, for many reasons.  The teacher sees a three-dimensional child.  The tests do not.  Children become statistics which may be turned as weapons against their teachers.   

The demand for standardized tests has skyrocketed.  Yet, it is "grossly ineffective" to force everyone who has the monetary means and/or the patience to prep themselves or be prepped (at so many high-stakes points in their life, starting in the early grades) toward one definition of success.  Curriculum, test prep materials and tests these days are written by people who profit greatly, but who seem to have very little practical understanding of childhood development.    

In my mind, people are pieces of a puzzle.  No two are the same.  When we all fit together, the picture is lovely.  Someone else's strength may be my weakness.  I may be the strength that someone else lacks.  Just as I wouldn't try to force a square peg into a round hole, I wouldn't try to deny the diversity of talents and interests that make our society a better place.   I see it in my classroom every day.  Schools need to allow students to succeed at different levels, along different paths, and in different ways.  To tout that I have the one correct formula for success in life, and I've bottled it in a battery of tests, makes me truly a charlatan.

Furthermore, "reformers" do harm by asserting their mistaken belief that the only progress that matters in school is academic.  Most teachers and parents will tell you that children have so many needs that must be met, above and beyond the mastery of an agreed-upon set of facts and skills.  Some of these needs interfere with a student's ability to learn.  If we fail students here, society will fail.  

Just as a general should work himself up from the ranks of soldier, I believe educational reformers should hail from the ranks of career teachers and administrators, people who know and understand realities of the day-to-day classroom.  Similarly, administrators should have a proven record of reliability and competence in the classroom.  They stand on the front lines of ensuring only qualified teachers earn tenure.  Tenure is a necessary added protection to help ensure academic freedom, an honest discussion of current issues and the protection of student services as well as a a safe learning environment, free from corruption.

With the reigning philosophy of the Bloomberg years, we saw corporate-minded individuals assume positions of educational leadership.  Yet, schools are not and should not be businesses.  Children are not commodities.  We need to educate productive citizens, not profit or award business-style favors.  We cannot discard individuals who do not meet the grade.    

My list of school supplies is significantly different from that of the "reformers."  There's no common core on my list.  I don't put punitive, test-based accountability on my list.  I'll take some glue to hold society together though, some crayons to color my world and a supply of erasers to try to amend the many mistakes of educational "reformers."   

Mrs. Brown Hasn't Got a Lovely Daughter

Diane Ravitch encountered considerable flack when in criticizing Campbell Brown's failure to understand any of the benefits of tenure, she mentioned that Brown is "telegenic" and pretty.  It was the compliment, not the criticism that evoked the most ire.  So, in that vein, and not wanting to insult her, I have reworked the 1965 British-Invasion song, "Mrs. Brown."

Mrs. Brown Hasn't Got a Lovely Daughter

Mrs. Brown hasn't got a lovely daughter

Girls as sharp as her hide their donors
But it's sad, she doesn't love tenure
She's made it clear enough, it ain't no good to teach

She wants to delete my due-process rights
Tell her I must keep them just the same
Things have changed, she doesn't love tenure
She's made it clear enough, it ain't no good to teach

Walkin' about, even in a court, well
She'll pick me out, "first in needs to be first out"

If she finds that I've got seniority
Tell her that I'm well and teachin' fine

Don't let on, don't say, "She stabs my heart"
I'd pay my lawyer fees, but it's no good to teach

Walkin' about, even in a court, well

She'll pick me out, "first in needs to be first out"

If she finds that I've got seniority
Tell her that I'm well and teachin' fine

Don't let on, don't say, "She stabs my heart"
I'd pay my lawyer fees, but it's no good to teach

Mrs. Brown hasn't got a lovely daughter
Mrs. Brown hasn't got a lovely daughter
Mrs. Brown hasn't got a lovely daughter

Brown's Crusade to Turn Teachers and Tenure into Scapegoats

Campbell Brown Practices her Pose

The NY Daily News had a piece yesterday:  "Exclusive:  Second lawsuit challenging tenure to be filed by group of New York families."  The second suit, launched by Campbell Brown, came as no surprise following Vergara.  It only remains to be seen if and when this suit will combine with the one launched by Mona Davids of the NYC Parents Union.    

Tenure's benefits far outweigh any potential costs (see here, for example).  And for those who would say, teachers do not need an added layer of protection, I would say some teachers are intimidated even with tenure.  Tenure is necessary as an added layer of protection to guarantee the due-process rights of those who would bravely stand up for students' rights "to a sound, basic education," including the provision of legally-required special services for children with I.E.P.s. 

The parents in Brown's lawsuit will "charge that their children are underserved in schools due to incompetent teachers."  As in Vergara, the children hail largely from impoverished communities and plaintiffs seek to pin students' lack of success solely on teachers.  A student's performance, however, is much more than the total of a teacher's effort.  A teacher cannot be effective for a student without a parent or guardian giving support when needed, a student committed to homework and study, a supportive administration, basic supplies and a generally healthy environment. 

The irony is immense.  Campbell Brown, now heads an organization called Partnership for Educational Justice.  She says, "I think we should evaluate every education law or policy by first asking, 'Is this good for children?'"  But if she was really concerned about what is good for children, she would raise the obvious issues of class size, charter school co-locations, lack of classroom supplies, over-testing, the increase in childhood poverty, etc., the issues that really hit at the heart of Educational Justice.  Yet, she and her "reform group" are silent on these issues.  Is it that they are blind or is it something else?  When asked who is funding her campaign against teachers, Brown is equally silent.  This says a lot more to me than any of her words.

For the time being, the case does not name any ineffective teachers, but you can sure bet that any good Samaritans who teach students from poorer neighborhoods may soon be wishing they had taken that more highly paying job in the suburbs.  If you work with poorer kids, doubtless, there's a target on your back already.  

Due-Process Rights of Tenure Protect Teachers' Rights to Protect their Students

Most teachers join the profession to help children.  In the first few years on the job, teachers are often "learning the ropes," working tirelessly to create lesson plans from scratch, prepare for observations, please their supervisors and keep their heads above water.  Teachers without tenure are usually least likely to question school policy or stand up for students' rights.  

Teachers need tenure.  It guarantees the due-process rights which are particularly important in a field in which the safety and health of public-school children are at risk.  Too often, a teacher questions some school policy, some safety issue, or, perhaps, whether the state-mandated services for special-needs students are being given, and then the harassment begins.  Without the due-process rights of tenure, teachers may be summarily dismissed for trying to protect the interests of students or the school in general.

Some administrators are petty.  Some will use their power to intimidate and, ultimately, if possible silence critics, watchdogs or whistle blowers.  In one of the more outlandish examples, in an ongoing story, a Manhattan principal has been repeatedly accused of fabricating letters of complaint against teachers, accusing them, in some cases, of pedophilia.   I do not know whether he is guilty or innocent.  I am glad that he and any of those whom may have been victims of his accusations, however, share in a system that respects the due-process rights of the accused.

Tenure is so important for so many reasons central to teaching.  Tenure protects academic freedom.  So many ideas that now seem commonplace had to be championed in the past through trials by fire.  In the past, female teachers were fired for getting married or becoming pregnant.  Teachers were fired for refusing to take loyalty oaths.  Today, teachers are more likely to be targeted, it seems, as they become more expensive to employ, especially given the current practice of applying business-minded principles of cost cutting to education.  Tenure protects teachers from vindictive students unhappy with their grades.  Tenure protects teachers from principals who wish to use their positions as patronage machines.  

If the due-process rights of tenure are stripped away, it may be quicker and cheaper to fire a few perverts who have already been removed from contact with students, but it will also be easier to fire the innocent and intimidate all those who might otherwise more easily stand up for the rights of students.  It will also accentuate the loss of dignity in the profession and cause many worthy candidates to turn away.  I can promise you, if tenure is revoked, much more harm than good will come of it.  Teachers will suffer, but their students will suffer even more.  

My Life in Court

When I decided to become a teacher, I never imagined I'd have a sword like the one pictured above hanging over the head of my profession and see the balance weighted against public education by thirty pieces of silver on one side.  My profession, indeed, the very foundations upon which my livelihood rests, have come under constant attack in court.  

In a short span of time, one's head could spin from all the court cases.  First, there was the Vergara decision of June 10th, bankrolled by a Silicon Valley magnate named David Welch, living in Atherton, California, the wealthiest  zip code in the U.S.  In this case, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge decided that California's tenure law threatens students' basic rights to a sound education by shielding "grossly ineffective" teachers.  

Most of the poorest teachers seem to work with the poorest students!  The court didn't say how we could distinguish between "grossly ineffective teachers" and the grossly inadequate conditions in which some students live.  How convenient to deal in logical fallacies and equate correlation with causality.  Who could truly believe that the most glaring thing that separates inhabitants of Atherton from those of an inner city is a handful of "grossly ineffective teachers"?  Yet, some of the wealthiest come down from their mansions on the hill to lead this witch hunt with torches in hand.  They take it into a land in which teachers dedicate their lives to trying to help some of the neediest children in overcrowded, underfunded schools!  At least one of the "grossly ineffective teachers" they pounced upon turned out to be a former Teacher of the Year.  The Vergara decision will surely be appealed and one hopes sound logic will prevail.

Then, there is the case of Harris v. Quinn, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court this week, striking a qualified blow at unions.  The plaintiffs in this case, home health-care workers in Illinois, used the First Amendment to attack the power of unions to collect proportional "fair share" fees from individuals who do not join the union, but still benefit from collective bargaining agreements.  Although the nurses won a victory, the decision stopped short of knocking down Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977) which allows 26 states to require their public-sector employees to pay union dues.  The home healthcare workers were identified as something different from full-fledged state employees.  It was stated that the decision therefore cannot apply to all public-sector unions.  Who knows though when this issue will be revisited again?

I saw some good news coming out of the courts in Chicago the other day.  The Illinois Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and other unions sued to protect the rights of public-sector employees to their pensions.  In Kanerva v. Weems, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the Pension Clause in the Illinois State Constitution, stating that the benefits "cannot be diminished or impaired," including health benefits.  Hallelujah!  Good news seems hard to find.

In one last piece of news, I read that the NYC Parents Union, led by Sam Pirozzolo and Mona Davids, has filed a suit on behalf of 11 students in Staten Island, challenging the tenure of NY teachers.  If anything, suits like these will cause more talented teachers to flee the most challenging schools in even greater numbers.  As it stands now, the teachers working in impoverished neighborhoods often do not stay long enough to earn tenure.  Who wants to be a sitting duck with none of the due-process protections of tenure?  How many will wish the swift sword of "justice" to fall upon their heads for trying to help students living in poverty, some with disabilities, and others with language deficiencies, succeed amid inhospitable conditions?  Who wants to be a martyr?  How about Mona Davids and Sam Pirozzolo?  How about David Welch?  

When 21st-Century "Scapegoating" Strives to Strip Teachers of Due Process...

The NY Post featured an article Sunday entitled, "It's nearly impossible to fire tenured teachers."  They included the insulting picture above.  In twenty years, I have barely sat down in class except when sick, let alone, slept in class.  (Any teacher with experience knows:  if you assume the pose above, you've just made yourself a sitting duck for drone attacks, friendly and otherwise!)  I strongly doubt the woman above is a teacher, and she is surely not representative of teachers, yet the paper would have us believe so for its purposes of propaganda.  

I find the tactics used by the Post reprehensible.  The paper focuses on a few sensational stories as a basis to strip all teachers of their due-process rights.  

Here is an example of their tactics: 

Deven Black, librarian

Deven BlackPhoto: Facebook

Castle Hill MS, Bronx
Touched a 13-year-old girl and told her she “looked sexy” after being warned about making inappropriate comments to students.
30-day suspension

I was reminded of tactics used to scapegoat other groups in history:

Illustration from the antisemitic
children's book,The Poisonous
Mushroom, in which a Jewish man
is depicted as a child molester
attempting to lure German children
with candy
Courtesy of Randall Bytwerk. 

From http://www.thebreman.org/exhibitions/online/1000kids/propaganda.html

You find a few bad eggs or invent some.  Next, you whip up public emotions to a fervor with your propaganda.  Then, you begin to strip away the rights of the targeted group, slowly at first, as you test the waters, but then when little opposition is encountered, you gather steam.  

If some criminals escape justice because of their Fifth or Sixth Amendment rights, does that mean we should scrap the Bill of Rights?  If some Jew acts inappropriately, does that mean we must target an entire group?  I would say only if there is already an underlying hatred and a will to do wrong.  

I am not implying, by any means, that the educational deformers are Nazis or Jew haters.  I do wonder though if they studied fascist propaganda techniques to terrorize teachers en masse, most of whom have good hearts.  Teachers tend to value the rewards stemming from helping children over the big bucks of well-funded teacher haters who would brand the profession as one of perverts as a means by which to strip away due process rights.  Many of this circle of millionaires ultimately hope to privatize public education, opening up the possibilities for great profit.  If we do not meet their injustices head on, I ask myself, what have teachers really learned from history?  

One of My Letters to an Editor

How Many Great Teachers do They Think will Want to Work in their Overcrowded, Underfunded Schools Without Tenure?
How Many will Want to be Blamed and Fired for the Low Test Scores of Students in their Community?

To the Editorial Staff:

In the editorial entitled "Stand firm for evaluating NYC teachers," I find yet another example of the teachers who serve society serving as society's scapegoat.  I am a teacher of twenty years.  I graduated among the top of my class.  My first semester teaching, I may have appeared "grossly ineffective" in my assigned school.  Some students would not heed kindly admonitions to sit down or stop talking.  I contemplated leaving the profession.  I was "excessed" to a better City school.  Suddenly, overnight, I became, relatively speaking, highly effective. 

In a current system that places faith in test-based accountability, if teachers lack the due-process rights granted by tenure, many will flee to the suburbs for far higher pay in neighborhoods in which students buy into the system.  Teachers who  remain to help the neediest children will become martyrs to their good intentions.  Many City students do not speak English, require extra school services or struggle with disabilities.  Some students have trouble coming to school, staying seated when present or reining in their short fuse.  Many of these students fail to buy into the system.  They do not see school as a way out.  Some students do well in class, but fail to return a single homework or study outside the perimeters of the building.  Parental contact usually has little to no effect. 

Schools with the greatest incidences of impoverished minority students actually have relatively few tenured teachers.  Due to extremely difficult conditions, these schools cannot retain a stable workforce.  After all, who, in his or her right mind would try to build a career teaching in an overcrowded, underfunded school, subject to closure due to the inability of students to do well on standardized tests? 

Tenure does not guarantee lifetime employment.  If one has effective administrators, they effectively refuse tenure to those unfit for the classroom.  In New York, there is a three-year period in which to do so.  Tenure does not mean that ineffective teachers cannot be removed.  It only guarantees teachers due-process rights. 

Tenure protects academic freedom.  Tenure prevents principals from using their schools as huge patronage systems.  Tenure allows teachers to offer suggestions and "blow the whistle" with less fear of reprisal.   Tenure releases teachers from the pressure of producing grades to meet the expectations of a current administration.  Tenure protects teachers from false accusations which may be hurled by teenagers disappointed by their grades.  Tenure protects teachers from vindictive administrators.  Tenure protects teachers who try to help students who may not make the grade on standardized tests.  Tenure protects many teachers from becoming many martyrs.