Homeschooling After A Bad Public School Experience
Sometimes it is just better not to watch the news. A lot of people know about the autistic boy who was voted out of his classroom, which just broke my heart. Then there was the little boy who had to endure his teacher calling him ignorant and pathetic in front of the entire class.
It is cases like those that really bug me when people say parents who choose to home school should just be trying harder to make the schools better. How exactly? Not only can we not change the teacher:student ratio, or the curriculum, or the hours, or the politics, or any other number of the negative things, we also cannot fire the bad teachers. And I’m not saying that to come down hard on teachers, they agree that getting rid of the bad apples is tough.
Teachers agree: Bad teachers with tenure too tough to fire
Think it’s hard for schools to get bad teachers out of the classroom? Turns out teachers agree.
More than half of teachers believe it’s too difficult to weed out ineffective teachers who have tenure, and nearly half say they personally know such a teacher, according to a survey released Tuesday evening by the Education Sector, a non-partisan think tank.
Tenure provides teachers with job security and generally is awarded a few years after educators enter the profession. It is supposed to ensure teachers can’t be fired at the whim of a principal or angry parent.
But it also can make it extremely difficult to dismiss a teacher who is doing a bad job, said Sabrina Silverstein, a Chicago pre-kindergarten teacher.
This has been bugging me a lot lately after a friend emailed me last week. She has sent her son to the local kindergarten, never once expecting to not use the public school system she had grown up in. Unfortunately the teacher he had was mean, nasty, and had no place being around little kids. After nearly a year of complaining to the principal, writing letters, showing up at the school, trying to meet with the teacher she gave up. In her own words:
Even if we did get a better teacher next year, and every year after, having to fight like this all year has jaded me. There may be good teachers, but they are trapped in a corrupt system.
Which is why next year she plans to file to home school her son. And says she is considering it until he leaves for college. Luckily she lives in Arizona where the laws are fairly lenient for her.
bad teachers, school, public school, home education
June 8th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Ugh, that story about the little boy being voted out of class disgusts me.
You must’ve seen that show hosted by John Stossel where he showed how hard it is to fire a bad teacher. It is ridiculous. If I wasn’t good in my career, I would’ve been fired, but, bad teachers can continue on, year after year, with no regard for their performance. Tenure is a joke.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:14 am
I did see it! it does seem ridiculous that bad teachers take so much to get fired. I guess I don’t understand why teachers need special protection to ensure they don’t get fired at the whims of a principle. I mean, what do other people do who are fired unjustly at the whims of their bosses?
June 12th, 2008 at 11:40 am
My husband is a high school math teacher, but we homeschool until high school. Several years ago, he taught with a teacher who finished her signature with “S.S.” Someone asked her about it and she replied, “Oh, I’m part of the Secret Service!” She claimed she had slept with President Reagan. She was clearly out of her mind, but she had tenure and they could not get rid of her. She finally did something grossly against Code and they were able to fire her. But unfortunately, there were several years of kids who had to take her class. Their time was wasted at tax payers’ expense!