Firing Teachers: Readers vs. Me

Teachers must be able to control and hold order in their classrooms. As a veteran educator of 28 years, I have been in classrooms where the teacher is "teaching" and no one is paying attention . . . notes are being passed, conversation is being shouted across the room, students are playing with toys in their desk, etc. I compare these classrooms to the Titanic, and just as the band continued to "play on" while the ship sank; these teachers continue to "drone on" in their sinking classrooms. Only occasionally do they stop to yell for order, in that pathetic, "I've completely lost control" voice that signals, to students, defeat.

-- ilvmyguys

I have seen the same, particularly in urban schools where too many people have given up. That is what Rhee clearly wants to change.

We don't really need research on KIPP schools to know that the student body in a selective school (whether the school selects the students or the parents select the school or some combination of the two) will be different from the student body in a school that takes in every student in its attendance area. There is all sorts of data, both quantitative and anecdotal, to demonstrate this. Anyone familiar with an area (New York, Boston, Philadelphia) that has a significant number of selective schools (mostly private) can attest to the differences.

-- Jphubba

I would love to see that data. If you have numbers showing the selective schools doing better than non-selective schools with the same demographics, I will do a column about it. The only schools I know that have found a way to violate significantly the iron rule of parental incomes are the KIPP schools and a few other schools and networks that devote the same attention to longer days and good teaching.

There is simply no comparison between the teaching staffs at private schools and public, and those at private schools are sometimes paid much less than their public counterparts!

-- trace1

The data I have seen, and my experiences with my kids attending both public and private schools, do not back you up.

Two points jumped out at me in your Sept. 29 article. First, new teachers at KEY who were performing poorly could be fired by Christmas, unlike most systems where it would take two years. Second, charter schools have "proven teachers" sitting around twiddling their thumbs who could be reassigned to replace the teachers who needed to be fired.

I don't know where you are getting your information about firing new teachers "in most systems," but in Illinois poorly performing new teachers are routinely released easily after completion of their first contract year. A principal in Illinois for nearly 30 years, I released many new teachers at the end of their first year not because they were awful, but because they weren't excellent. I find it difficult to believe that the laws regarding teacher dismissal are that different in D.C. And the teacher unions in Illinois are no different than those in other states.

-- George Peternel, associate director, Center for Talent Development, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University

The two fired teachers at KIPP were replaced by teachers already at the school who were not twiddling anything. One was replaced in another class she had been teaching by a new hire. The other was a special education coach whose duties could be taken over by other staffers. I found your information about Illinois fascinating and e-mailed you back. You said you were not sure whether there were data showing how many teachers were released early this way, but I hope to find out more about that.