Monday Links

I also agree with Marvin, but have to tell you, Minard, that getting rid of truly bad teachers is not as hard as you think. Contrary to what Bloomberg, Klein, and Black would have you believe, a principal who properly documents what a teacher does can get a teacher fired. Tenure merely means that all the ducks must be in a row. In most cases of bad teachers, though, principals do not do the work of observing, counseling, documenting, and then dismissing a bad teacher. In many cases, the principals/AP’s are so inept themselves, that they are unable to tell good teaching from bad and most often want to get rid of a teacher for personal as opposed to professional reasons. In any case, a HUGE percentage of teachers don’t make it through their first year, much less 5 years. So, many of these substandard teachers don’t actually have to be fired because they’ve already left on their own. When you read that Black wants to do away with last in/first fired, remember that she wants to fire many people who have proved themselves in the classroom repeatedly and prefers to keep newcomers, half of whom will leave in one to 3 years because they simply cannot hack the job. Do you think the fact that new teachers are earning roughly half what older teachers earn could have ANYTHING to do with Black’s preference? You think??

“It’s almost impossible to fire a government employee no matter how poorly they perform their job.”

Absolute nonsense! The last 24 of my 30 years with City government was as personnel director of a medium sized agency. I participated in firing many employees. It IS difficult to terminate someone who’s completed his/her one year probation period and achieved permanent status, but it can be done for misconduct or incompetence. I was involved with quite a number of “Section 75” hearings and don’t recall the outcome having ever been reversed. Of course we only dismissed employees when it was justified and we had proper documentation of their shortcomings, something not really difficult to do. The KEY however, is to carefully observe an employee DURING their probationary period, when they can be dismissed without any stated reason. It’s extraordinary for someone to fake competence for a year and change after achieving tenure.

Jeffries is being disengenuous like most other elected officials on this subject. MTA funding has been cut by these same elected officials every year for the past 4 or 5 years. Of course they’re going to have a huge budget gap to close. It’s also one of the most poorly subsidized systems in the country. Riders shoulder about 70% of the cost up front, but most other systems get at least a 50% subsidy on the back end, lowering how much is paid at the fare box.

I wish we could program some people at birth. It seems like once they’re introduced into any system problems just flourish.