Teacher Tenure Essay Example for Free

Teacher Tenure Essay One issue among many issues in today’s education system is teacher tenure. The problem with teacher tenure is that it makes firing an incompetent teacher virtually impossible. Many teachers in public schools have tenure, according to Education Reporter; approximately 80% of public school teachers have tenure (â€Å"Why Bad Teachers†¦Ã¢â‚¬  1). This in turn then affects the amount the students learn and progress. In order for the education system to improve the problem of teacher tenure, needs to find a solution. The amount of time and money required to fire a tenured teacher makes it difficult to remove underperforming teachers, and affects students. Tenured teachers are difficult to be fired because of the amount of money and time required by the schools and state. In many states it can take almost a year to fire a tenured teacher, there are even some states where it could take over a year to fire a tenured teacher. According to ProCon.org, in the state of Michigan it can take up to 355 days to fire a tenured teacher (â€Å"Teacher Tenure† 1). In an Education Reporter article â€Å"Why Bad Teachers†¦Ã¢â‚¬  it states that the Ney York State School Boards Association found that it takes an average of 455 days to dismiss a tenured teacher (1). This process of firing a tenured teacher also costs the state a lot of money, according to ProCon.org a school in Los Angeles a three and a half million dollars to try and fire 7 under performing teachers (â€Å"Teacher Tenure† 3). Due to the amount of time and money required of the schools and states, they are not firing underperforming teachers. According to â€Å" Pro tecting Bad Teachers,† in a Chicago school district 28.5% of 11th grade students met or exceeded expectations on Chicago’s state standardized tests, only 0.1% of teachers were dismissed for performance related reasons between 2005 and 2006 (1). â€Å"Between 1995 and 2005, only 112 Los Angeles tenured teachers faced termination – eleven per year – out of 43,000. And that’s in a school district where the graduation rate in 2003 was just 51 percent, (â€Å"Protecting Bad Teachers† 1). As reported by ProCon.org in â€Å"Teacher Tenure,† 81% of school administrators reported that they knew of a poorly performing tenured teacher at their school; however 86% administrators said they do not always pursue dismissal, (1). The point is that teachers that are not meeting the standards still have their jobs, because the school districts and statescannot afford to spend the time and money on firing them; they therefore continue to teach and it directly affects student test scores and graduation rate. There are cases although where the school instead of firing the teacher they move them to different positions. In LA and San Francisco they pay suspended teachers to answer phones, work in ware houses, or just stay home. One case of a teacher being moved is that of Patricia Adams, her story can be found in the New Yorker’s article â€Å"The Rubber Room,† (2-3). In November of 2005, Adams was found unconscious in her classroom, the principal tried to wake her up but she did not wake up. A teacher at the scene reported that he could smell what he believed to be alcohol on her. Adams two years later returned to teach one last semester and then a secretary position, as long as she had not found another teaching job, and she would be required to have random alcohol testing. In February of 2009, she passed out in the office she worked in a drug and alcohol testing services technician was called to the scene and reported that Adams could not even blow into a breathalyzer and her water bottle contained alcohol. Adams was eventually fired, but cost the school and state a decent amount of money. People like Patricia Adams should be fired when the first incident occurs so they do not cost the state any more money. Tenured teachers that are under performing are not being fired because of the amount of money and time they cost states and schools. Underperforming teachers are not fired due to the amount of money and time required to fire them and in turn affect student’s learning. In some cases teachers that are not performing to standards are moved to â€Å"Rubber Rooms,† where they will do the least amount of â€Å"damage† to a student’s education, these rooms normally contain remedial students. However, there are some extreme cases where teachers are put in a room and are not responsible for students. In New York City according to The New York Daily News† there is an average of 700 teachers being paid not to teach, because it would cost too much to fire them, (â€Å"Protecting Bad Teachers† 2). In The New Yorker it describes a Rubber Room â€Å"It’s a June morning, and there are fifteen people in the room, four of them fast asleep, their heads lying on a card table. Three are playing a board game. Most of the others stand around chatting. Two are arguing over one of the folding chairs. But there are no children here. The inhabitants are all New York City schoolteachers who have been sent to what is officially called a Temporary Reassignment Center but which everyone calls a Rubber Room,† (The Rubber Room 1). The author then states that these teachers stay in the Rubber Room and get paid to do nothing for an average of three years. These teachers take money from the system and affect the students. A student’s success is dependent on consistently having a good teacher. As stated in the New Yorker, â€Å"Kids succeeding in school isn’t money spent on buildings or books, but, rather the quality of their teachers†¦ ‘having a top-quartile teacher rather than a bottom-quartile teacher four years in a row would be enough to close the black-white test score gap,’†(The Rubber Room 4). A student simply cannot be successful in school if they do not have a good teacher. Early elementary students can suffer long – term negative effects, even if they have good teachers later on. The way concepts build on each other throughout school make it very difficult to catch up after a year with a bad teacher. In the MET project it states â€Å"Teachers previously identified as more effective caused students to learn more. Groups of teachers who had been identified as less effective caused students to learn less,† (Ensuring Fair†¦Effective Teaching 3). The success of students relies on the effectiveness of their teachers. In order for the education system to improve, the majority of teachers need to be effective in their teaching styles. There are many different possible solutions to the problem with teacher tenure, including the Peer Intervention Program Plus, taking away tenure, and more effective ratings of teachers. The Peer Intervention Program Plus (P.I.P. Plus), is a program in which teachers suspected of incompetence are observed by a peer teacher for up to a year; at the end the peer then submits a report as to if the teacher was incompetent. This program would allow for the peer to help the teacher improve their teaching and keep the teacher before they would be fired. Another solution is to not have tenure anymore, schools would save money because they would not have to pay incompetent teachers and would not spend money to fire them. Tenure is not needed for some teachers to apply, according to ProCon.org; 900 teachers applied for 80 openings knowing there was no tenure (â€Å"Teacher Tenure† 1). More effective ratings of teachers would also help solve the issue of teacher tenure. These ratings should not be based solely on test scores but balanced with observations as well as student surveys. Many teachers receive one of the top two ratings, because the principals know they cannot fire bad tenured teachers anyways. Teachers could also be evaluated by â€Å"value-added scores,† with this system teachers add value when a student improves in a year. In conclusion the best overall best solution is a combination of the solutions suggested above. Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg took over the New York school system and their success in the schools is described in the New Yorker. Klein and Bloomberg have a very aggressive approach to removing bad teaches, they also used P.I.P Plus. In the New Yorker school teacher Brandi Scheiner is quoted, â€Å"‘Before Bloomberg and Klein, everyone knew that an incompetent teacher would realize it and leave on their own†¦There was no need to push anyone out,’† (â€Å"The Rubber Room† 1). Bloomberg and Klein’s aggressive tactics to remove teachers have been successful, both graduation rates and test scores have improved since they took over. The principals also play a role in firing of teachers and are therefore responsible in pointing out incompetent teachers and removing them from teaching. An example of a pro-active teacher is Daysi Garcia; she is a princip al in Queens and according to Klein a standout principal. Garcia is motivated to remove incompetent teachers and in the New Yorker is quoted after spending 5 days testifying to remove a teacher, â€Å"‘when I think about the impact of a teacher like this on the children and how long that lasts, it’s worth it, even if it is hard,’† (â€Å"The Rubber Room† 5). Before the education system can improve principals need to step up and remove incompetent teachers. The issue of teacher tenure also needs to be resolved.

The Civil Rights Movement :: African-American Civil Rights Movement

In the postwar years, the NAACP's legal strategy for civil rights continued to succeed. Led by Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund challenged and overturned many forms of discrimination, but their main thrust was equal educational opportunities. For example, in Sweat v. Painter (1950), the Supreme Court decided that the University of Texas had to integrate its law school. Marshall and the Defense Fund worked with Southern plaintiffs to challenge the Plessy doctrine directly, arguing in effect that separate was inherently unequal. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on five cases that challenged elementary- and secondary-school segregation, and in May 1954 issued its landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that stated that racially segregated education was unconstitutional. White Southerners received the Brown decision first with shock and, in some instances, with expressions of goodwill. By 1955, however, white opposition in the South had grown into massive resistance, a strategy to persuade all whites to resist compliance with the desegregation orders. It was believed that if enough people refused to cooperate with the federal court order, it could not be enforced. Tactics included firing school employees who showed willingness to seek integration, closing public schools rather than desegregating, and boycotting all public education that was integrated.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The White Citizens Council was formed and led opposition to school desegregation allover the South. The Citizens Council called for economic coercion of blacks who favored integrated schools, such as firing them from jobs, and the creation of private, all-white schools. Virtually no schools in the South were desegregated in the first years after the Brown decision. In Virginia one county did indeed close its public schools. In Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, Governor Orval Faubus defied a federal court order to admit nine black students to Central High School, and President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce desegregation. The event was covered by the national media, and the fate of the Little Rock Nine, the students attempting to integrate the school, dramatized the seriousness of the school desegregation issue to many Americans. Although not all school desegregation was as dramatic as in Little Rock, the desegregation process did proceed-gradually. Frequently schools were desegregated only in theory, because racially segregated neighborhoods led to segregated schools. To overcome this problem, some school districts in the 1970s tried busing students to schools outside of their neighborhoods. As desegregation progressed, the membership of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) grew.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The KKK used violence or threats against anyone who was suspected of favoring desegregation or black civil rights. Klan terror, including intimidation and murder, was widespread in the South in the 1950s and 1960s, though Klan

Photosynthesis Playbill

The CREW Stage Manager Jo King Assistant Stage ManagerUriel Smart Creator/Writer NH Graphic Designer Kenny Dewitt Costume Designer Uta Mann Set and Props Crew Starr E. Sky Lighting DesignerWanda Rinn Sound Crew Dinah Might Dance Crew Jim Class Makeup Vic Toree DresserNeil B. Formi Acknowledgements The script, Life of Ps was made possible by my AP Biology teacher’s assignment.If not for her, I would never have sat down and composed a four page script about Photosynthesis. I would also like to thank my supporting family for listening to my complaints and frustrations throughout this process. My gratitude goes out to the AP Bio Facebook group as well, for answering all the questions I had about Photosynthesis. Thank you all very much. The CAST In order of appearance *Narrator *Thylakoid Lila *Calvin Cycle Cal Water H-Two-Oh *Electrons *Oxygen Oxi *Photons Tony *Photosystems II and I (respectively) *Chlorophylls A (P680 and P700) *Hydrogen Ion The Hydrogen Twins *Ferredoxin *Cytoc hrome Complex *Plastoquinone *Carbon Dioxide *NADP+ and NADPH *NADP+ Reductase *ATP Synthase *ATP and ADP + P *Ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP) and RuBisCO *3-PGA *G3P *Glucose Biographies Main characters (Alphabetically)Calvin Cycle: Three phases occur here: carbon fixation, reduction, and regeneration Chlorophylls A (P680 and P700): reflects green light, and absorbs red and blue light to being the process of photosynthesis Electrons: transported through the Electron Transport Chain for the production of ATP and NADPH Glucose: ATP from the Light Reactions are used, with the addition of hydrogen ions to CO2 to make glucose. Narrator: Narrates the play Thylakoid: interconnected sacs and membranes within the chloroplast that contain enzymes involved in Light Reactions Water: is split to release electrons, hydrogen ions, and oxygen

Talk About Geologic Time in Ma or Myr

Geologists have a bit of awkwardness in their language in talking about the deep past: distinguishing dates in the past from durations  or ages. Ordinary people dont have a problem with the weirdness of historical time—in 2017; we can easily say that an event in B.C.E. 200 happened 2216 years ago,  and that an object made back then is 2216 years old today. (Remember, there was no year 0.) But geologists have a need to separate out the two types of time with different abbreviations or symbols, and there is a debate about establishing a standard way of expressing it. A widespread practice has arisen in the last few decades that gives dates (not ages) in the format X Ma (x million years ago); for example, rocks that formed 5 million years ago are said to date from 5 Ma. 5 Ma is a point in time that is 5 million years from the present. And instead of saying that a rock is 5 Ma old, geologists use a different abbreviation, such as m.y., mya, myr, or Myr (all of which stand for millions of years, in reference to age or duration). This is a little awkward, but the  context makes things clear. Agreeing on a Definition for Ma Some scientists see no need for two different symbols or abbreviations, as something formed 5 million years before the present would indeed be 5 million years old. They are in favor of one system or set of symbols for all sciences, from geology and chemistry to astrophysics and nuclear physics. They wish to use Ma for both, which has caused some concern from geologists, who want to make the distinction and view it as unnecessarily confusing going forward to have Ma apply to both. Recently the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) convened a task force to decide on an official definition of the year to go into the Systà ¨me International or SI, the metric system. The exact definition isnt important here, but the symbol they chose, a, (for the Latin annus, which translates to year) would override geological custom by requiring everyone to use Ma for millions of years ago, ka for thousands of years ago, and Ga for billions of years ago, etc. everywhere. That would make writing geology papers somewhat harder, but we could adjust. But Nicholas Christie-Blick of Columbia University has looked more deeply at the proposal and cried foul in GSA Today. He raised an important question: How can SI accommodate the year as a derived unit when SI rules require that these must be simple powers of base units? The metric system is for physical quantities and measurable distances, not time: points in time are not units. Theres no room in the rules for a derived unit called the year, which would be defined as 31,556,925.445 s. Derived units are things like the gram (10 -3 kg). If this were a legal dispute, Christie-Blick would be arguing that the year has no standing. Start over, he says, and get buy-in from geologists.