Did you hear that bad teachers can now be fired? There was just a court decision in California that said kids in poor schools were being discriminated against because bad teachers could not be fired. I think that it is about time that some one started using their brains regarding teacher's unions.
I have been listening to arguments from teachers and other that this is a bad decision and hurts good teachers. I don't think anyone wants to hurt good teachers. Do you? Here is the logic that is being used. What the teachers want is a "perfect" system that only allows the really bad teachers to be fired and never allows a marginal or good teacher to be fired. I have blogged on this business of only wanting "perfect" solutions and rejecting all others. If you think about it, there is no perfect system for anything and we all know it. If we hold out for a "perfect" solution, it means that nothing will ever be done. This leads to the real objective of the teacher's union which is to not allow any teacher to ever be fired. If that is the case, why is the court decision actually good?
I am going to start from the position that no decision process can be "perfect". I am a hunter and would like to always make a "perfect" shot, but know that this is impossible. If that is the case, what should I do? I can shoot too high or too low, but I can never shoot perfectly. Of the three alternatives, there are really only "two", too high or too low. Is one of these better or worse than the other? If I can figure that out, I will know which alternative to select. In the case of the shot, if I shoot low and miss, I will scare the game and not get a second shot. If I shoot high and miss, it will not scare the game and I have the chance of a second shot. See how logical this is? Now, back to the teachers.
The problem with a decision that is not "perfect", I could fire a good teacher or I could keep a bad teacher. Now, how do I deal with this. If I keep a bad teacher, I will be screwing thousands of kids for years. That would clearly not be good. If I fired a good teacher, it would not hurt kids much because they would get another teacher who was good. The problem is that a good teacher got fired, but how bad is that? If the teachers is actually good, then the teacher could go out and get another job. The good teacher could be out of a job for a while, but this is a small price to pay for the risk of a bad teacher screwing kids for many years.
Isn't it clear that this was a good court decision even if it is not "perfect". We have to stop allowing our simple minded politicians to keep hiding behind "perfect" or "we don't have all the facts".
