Jackson Elementary was a low-performing, low-income, all-minority school in San Diego. New, young teachers hired after a round of retirements in 2002 turned it into a “distinguished” school: In 2002, 8 percent of students were proficient or better in math, 10 percent in English; that rose to 53 percent in math and 50.6 percent in English in 2007. But 24 of 26 teachers have received pink slips. San Diego Unified needs to balance the budget; layoffs are based on seniority, not performance.
“This is the kind of school I always hoped I would be a part of,” said Sharon Fargason, a first-grade teacher who received a pink slip. “The students appreciate their education so much. So do the parents. It’s an amazing place to work.”
Districts are required to give early notice of layoffs and usually overdo it, so some laid-off teachers may be offered jobs in the fall. But it will be impossible to recreate the team that turned around Jackson Elementary. More experienced teachers — the ones who left Jackson for better schools — will be assigned to the school.
I can’t wait to see the results.
Had the same thing happen in Detroit. Bottom-of-the-heap elementary school gets a new principal who makes life miserable for the sad sack teachers, gets buy-in from the older teachers who give a damn, fires up a bunch of the new teachers and, presto! change-o, the school vaults to the top of the district.
Then there’s a cut-back because the district as a whole sucks and school are closing. The newly terrific school? About 40% of the staff is bumped by higher seniority teachers from the closing schools.
The school drops back to the bottom of the rankings again. So much for the importance of education.
What important isn’t the teachers or kids, it’s keeping the system going - regardless of what harm the system does.
> What important isn’t the teachers or kids, it’s keeping the system going - regardless of what harm the system does.
That’s the inescapable message embodied in stories like this.
Samuel G. Freedman’s story in today’s New York Times is relevant to this topic and insightful, to put it mildly.
This story is a good antidote to the myth that good teachers are losing their jobs because their kids are incapable of passing the tests. This is how it really happens.
Margo/Mom-
How does this one anecdote prove anything?
SS–prove would be your word, not mine. I said it was a good antidote to a myth. I have read the specs in a few contracts, as well as some summaries of others and fairly well understand the rules of seniority and how they come into play in layoffs.
If there is any “proof” or any other indicators to support the myth–that good teachers are losing their jobs because they are teaching students who are incapable of passing tests, I would certainly be willing to look at it.
M/M - the term “antidote” suggests removal of a problem… so it seems that you are saying that this story completely disproves the “myth” of teachers being fired for failures outside their control.
That being said, I’m not a big fan of the unions or their tendency to eat their young. It’s just that logically this one instance cannot act as an “antidote” to any myth as it is just one instance and the circumstances seem exceptional.
Exceptional? Hardly. What union is going to negotiate a contract which doesn’t include bumping provisions? Certainly the membership is unlikely to approve a contract that doesn’t include that item.
Perhaps the exceptionality is that the school made improvements.
The “exception” is that such a large proportion of the faculty was just recently hired. If the faculty represented a better mixture of seniority and had not so many been laid off, this would not have been in the news.
Although, the “success” of the school probably has much to do with the young faculty. Many schools have existing “baggage” ranging from the usual anti-administration and union issues to more personal feuds between teachers for slights (imagined or not). New teachers kinda come in naive to all this and are more likely to not let it get in the way.
Also remember that in the end, only 50% or so of the students could read at grade level. This is not to underscore their achievement of huge improvement, but many might believe that only given another year or two the school would be above 80% success.