Save Great Teachers - Let's End Last In, First Out

[bnannylv]

Awful. Talk about manipulative. Where do you begin with such obviously misleading "data".

Tell me, why does Michelle Rhee get such a BIG MICROPHONE to push this propaganda, when there are far smarter, more knowledgeable and more experienced people who can speak about education issues?

Is it just because Rhee gets a boatload of money from the corporations, hedge fund guys, Wall Street and billionaires to push this fraudulent education "reform" agenda? I'm not falling for it.

[specter290]

I MIGHT Also add a picture of that cool girl starting 1:12

[specter290]

nice statistics starting 1:14, im quoting that for my english paper

[viall4diabetes]

What a cute little chart. Try teaching more than three years like Rhee. Find out, if you don't have tenure, what happens if a good teacher challenges a lousy administrator. Find out if we return to the good old days, when school boards dumped veterans and made room for their children, cousins. etc. See how often schools facing deficits DUMP good veterans because young teachers cost less and can be cowed. Tenure is flawed. Rhee's approach is incredibly simplistic.

[ericsdale]

LIFO does not make sense for this system

[FixerDad43]

Layoffs due to budget are not the only time teachers get fired. It's possible to fire teachers with DUE PROCESS at any time, and if a teacher can be correctly identified as needing to go then by by. This happens a lot. While some improvements can be made in the existing system, it's BOGUS to pretend that it doesn't work or that the "rubber room" is the rule everywhere. When due process works why wait for LIFO? Busting unions and redefining collective bargaining to allow firing at will is why.

[mpaone]

I appreciate the economic / business-minded arguments made here, but I'd love to see the same energy put behind our currently skewed financial and tax policies which created the economic crisis in the first place. I think campaigns like this, while important, are playing clean-up for the larger neo-liberal economic agenda, which is has been crushing the middle class since the 70's. I would love to see Michelle Rhee be vocal on that. That would efficient. @Occupy Backwards Economic Policy.

[FixerDad43]

LIFO is about layoffs due to budget issues. Research proves that experience is the best predictor of teaching excellence. Students First admits they have no idea on how many good teachers get laid off. we all should realize that when you lay off tons of teachers as we are now there's no doubt we are loosing good ones since we are firing too many in the first place. There is NO reliable data to indicate what percentage of teachers are not good. Don't fire well paid teachers to balance the budget.

[mpaone]

@FixerDad43 Amen. I think that argument is very weak as well. It's like we're playing for scraps and pennies, meanwhile in the next room, bankers and big businesses are having a money throwing party with big piles of cash. Very disempowering and distracting.

[MsJanetWood]

Why does the president of the United States have to be 35 years of age?

Why do auto insurance companies charge more to insure people under 25?

Because, EXPERIENCE matters!

Let's stop blaming the teachers!

Let's start holding students accountable! Schools are a reflection of their communities!

Also, let's get rid of all the over-paid administrators, publishing company fads and educational consultants.

Let's go back to the BASICS!

[JohnLeeMD]

@MsJanetWood Experience absolutely matters. But at a certain point, the AMOUNT of experience that contributes to production becomes marginal. Such that a teacher that has 5-yrs experience is EXPERIENCED ENOUGH, and a 20-yr teacher isn't theoretically 4x better. But experience in an "average" teachers hands means nothing compared to a brilliant teacher with marginal experience. The fact that we SHUT the door to any potential brilliant (young) teachers is flat wrong.

[MsJanetWood]

@JohnLeeMD Experience grows exponentially, therefore a teacher with 20 years experience is a ZILLION times better than a newbie who merely has 5 years. You are more likely to find a BRILLIANT teacher who has been teaching for 20 years! A teacher with marginal experience may think she has it all figured out, but she is just beginning her career.

[ddrum001]

Perhaps they should stress more that they're not proposing FIFO either, but rather lay-off should be based of performance. The crucial question is how does one judge performance? Quantifiable test improvements from previous years, principal judgements, some mixture? Whatever system is used we should at least try some system, we owe it to our children and to the greater public. Also this isn't pinning the old against the young...LIFO unfairly hurts teachers in their early 20's...not much older

[MsJanetWood]

Why does auto insurance cost more for people under 25?

Because, they lack EXPERIENCE! Once they learn how to drive, the insurance rates goes down. At least for a while, it goes up again when you turn 65!

[nanomicroart]

"In order to create the best minds you need the best tools, 'let the facts on record, Bering forth the best to teach,' and for those skilled to replace the unskilled!" "We all-know it's a hard world for the uneducated, don't allow uneducated teachers to take control of the advance minds of todays students, we all lose in dong so!" Best Regards, PHG

[MsJanetWood]

What a super idea! I wonder why no one thought of this before!

Let’s get rid of all those ugly, old, wrinkled, gray-haired, denture-wearing, bifocal-wearing, arthritic, slow-moving teachers that stink like Ben-Gay!

Let’s replace them with pretty, young teachers that can keep up the pace!

[MsiLovemaniacs]

.... He was unfortunately layed off b/c LIFO. Whereas my teacher from my junior year kept her job because she was an elderly teacher with seniority. What an injustice!!

I agree that a new system should be instated to save great teachers from losing their jobs. It isn't fair to allow people who have obviously lost their touch with teaching stay in our school district because of LIFO.

[MsiLovemaniacs]

Just because a teacher is experienced doesn't mean they can do their job well. I had an insufferable teacher my junior year of high school. Many of us struggled HARD in the subject (my older brother had the same teacher the previous year and BARELY passed) I transferred to a new school the following year and re-took the same subject with a younger teacher who was in his 2nd year of teaching. Man, what a world of difference!!! I couldn't believe how much easier it was to learn with him...

[chiana1980]

This would give districts the ability to fire good experienced teachers instead of good inexperienced teachers, and they would, because it would save money. In fact, they may also fire a good experienced teacher and keep a not so good inexperienced teacher to save money.

I love their claim that poor districts get hit the hardest because they have most of the new teachers. Having more new teachers in a district doesn't increase the number of layoffs that will be made.

[Wizard1440]

@chiana1980 The poorest performing *schools* in a district tend to have the greatest number of new teachers. Layoffs are district-wide, but they hit the poorest schools the hardest because of the greater number of newer and lesser-paid teachers.

[ddrum001]

@chiana1980 I believe the poorer district claim is because poorer districts statistically tend to have lower retention rates for teachers and thus have a less experienced group on average. Why do poorer schools retain fewer teachers?...the naive guess is that it may be harder, though it should be examined thoroughly. LAUSD had a lawsuit for this reason. All that is being said is that there isn't necessarily a correlation between experience and "good" teaching...so why use LIFO?

[mastertech63]

The only problem I see with this is the part about how a district could fire less people by firing those at the top (with most time dedicated to the profession). Does that mean that a district will look at getting rid of the higher paid teacher first in order to save money, regardless of skill and accomplishment? That's what the last in, first out system is trying to protect teachers from. There must be some middle ground because neither of these two ends are ideal.

[Wizard1440]

@mastertech63 What StudentsFirst is advocating is an end to the old policy, not a reversal that would only layoff senior teachers. States should require that their school districts base layoffs on quality, so that the poorest-performing teachers get laid off, regardless of their level of seniority.

[FixerDad43]

@Wizard1440 They advocate using seriously flawed methods to determine who to fire which keeps cycling newbies thru the cash cow system they advocate for instead of focusing on making sure that only great teachers get in front of kids in the first place. No profit in a stable, highly trained workforce that stays for life based on merit and so doesn't need evaluations to prove it. Follow the money and see the hypocrisy and disinformation of these anti-union, anti-teacher shills for the 1%.

[JohnLeeMD]

@mastertech63 This is where you have to have integrity/robustness in the decision-making process. I've advocated having parents give reviews (similar to what we see on amazon.com, etc.) Just like there, one can easily get a strong sense of a product's (in this case, teacher's) quality. Anyone who shops online will tell you how great they are. That sort of SIMPLE thing could add a layer of integrity in the process, giving decision-makers valuable info with which to make personnel decisions.

[SchecterManiac]

And I totally agree. Last In First Out makes absolutely no sense. Without good teachers, students have less chance of going to a good college, and a higher chance of being for example a drug dealer. Or a garbage truck driver.

[SchecterManiac]

The coolest teacher in the WORLD at my school was layed off last year. He was freakin hilarious! Study halls with him were the best! I heard he's now a bartender in Sayre. This year, a very great music/chorus teacher was layed off, leaving all 3 schools without a music teacher. He gives after school vocal lessons so kids could be better singers. Now they have very little chance of that happening. One great way I believe to stop layoffs? NO MORE REGENTS!! Schools could save billions of dollars.

[howlinmamawolf]

Simple, effective video--needs greater exposure! Thanks.

[getbonus]

good video -- WHY is it unlisted?