What is the "Dance of the lemons"? Bad teachers being passed around

July 27, 8:04 AMEducation in the News ExaminerEricha Parks

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Why are school districts prevented from laying off or firing under-performing teachers? The unions. At a time when our financial education crisis is at an all time high, school administrators' hands are tied. How much influence is in the hands of the teachers unions with respect to school personnel matters?  Plenty.

It is difficult to imagine why anybody would create obstacles for the termination of a poorly performing teacher. However, the unions make costly restrictions for firing a tenured teacher and will support the offending teacher in legal actions. This has caused school districts to be overcome with legal fees and time-consuming procedures, sometimes taking years to accomplish with appeals.

We already know that class sizes will explode this fall, according to the New York Times. Many qualified teachers will be leaving their teaching posts as a result of the massive rounds of layoffs resulting from the financial education crisis in California. On the flip side, many unmotivated and poorly performing teachers will remain.

This debate has many questioning the force behind this tenure practice and what action can be taken. It looks promising that federal reform for education is being discussed, a bit too late in the case of California teachers. However, President Obama has weighed-in announcing in March, "It is time to start rewarding good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones." But who makes the case against merit pay for teachers? The teachers’ unions oppose merit pay citing that test scores would be a flawed formula to determine success in a classroom.

Certainly, most of us agree that test scores are not the measure by which teachers should be judged. It makes sense because students’ background and learning paces vary. But isn’t it possible to evaluate teacher success in a more traditional way? Even Obama has vowed to find a better way to track student progress in order to determine teacher accountability. At stake for the unions: their own relevance. Teachers’ unions have to create a following for membership whereby promising security for its members who pay the dues. Teachers’ unions have such a hold on the legislature by virtue of their lobbying power and campaign contributions, that reform is nearly impossible.

I tried to reach A.J. Duffy, president of UTLA, the Los Angeles teachers’ union, to ask him what formula could be made to determine merit other than using test scores. Although I was authorized to pose the question for comment to UTLA’s Communications Department, Mr. Duffy has not returned my phone call. The result of keeping contracted teachers employed is a practice of transferring an offending teacher within the school district if that teacher has poor performance at the preceding school site.

According to Teachersunionexposed.com, this practice is called "the dance of the lemons" or "passing the trash." The unions are the architects of this practice by disallowing a teacher to be fired for poor performance. UTLA has come under fire recently for failing to reform its contract or collective bargaining agreement, which would give the school district more flexibility in adjusting pay, benefits and more creative ways to save money so more or all teachers can be spared unemployment. In recent days, Arne Duncan, Secretary of the US Department of Education and Obama, both are calling for education reform by the teachers unions.

Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times, wrote a column expressing frustration with the teachers’ union. Lopez critizes UTLA and its confusing and voluminous 347-page collective bargaining agreement. Lopez, in his column, appeared to be confused and lost "in Article IX, Hours, Duties and Work Year." And again, "between Pages 108 and 132, under Article XII, Leaves and Absences." So far there has been little movement from the teachers unions. On the other hand, UTLA practices publicity stunts masquerading as teacher-support.

One such stunt, called Pink Friday, on March 13, had all teachers and students wearing pink in protest of the layoffs. What makes this bizarre is the fact that had it not been for the UTLA contract, teachers would probably not be in this position. Certainly a reform of the collective bargaining agreement would mitigate the damage to schools and class sizes by allowing creative solutions such as furloughs and across-the-board pay reductions to be considered as a solution.

Eliminating a bad teacher is also in the hands of the parents. What can parents do to report a bad teacher? Click the next link. http://www.examiner.com/x-5067-Education-in-the-News-Examiner~y2009m7d13-Arne-Duncan-pushes-for-teacher-merit-pay--the-politics-and-parents-rights

http://teachersunionexposed.com/

http://ww.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060914/news_lz1ed14bottom.html

http://ww.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060914/news_lz1ed14bottom.html

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7991577&page=1

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/07/02/36neaduncan.h28.html?tkn=OYMFmDTyY9hpgWs3y5Z7d5ib4rEjbsl6Z%2BJV