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This is just a fancy way to say that the DOE wants teaching to be a temporary position and that it would save a lot of money to lay off us experienced, high paid teachers.   It makes me so sad to see us older teachers so devalued and even more depressed to see how corporate America is destroying education.  Sure, there are a few teachers out there–new and old–who are substandard (as in every profession), but these proposals will only serve to destroy teaching as a profession.  I traded off a lucrative career to do something I love and something I excel at (and, yes, I am a great, well-loved and well-respected teacher).  Once the economy picks up, who does corporate America think will work in the classroom, under these conditions and constantly under attack?  There have always been teaching shortages…less so now, but that’s due to a faltering economy.

There are those who will say that as an excellent, well-respected teacher that I would not get laid off.  Those people are clearly unfamiliar with the politics in schools, the lack of judgment of younger administrators (my new principal is barely 30 years old and has no clue as to how to run a school.  She alienates everyone, is inconsistent, but is a Leadership Academy graduate and is beloved by Tweed!)  Yeah, she would lay me off, but she would probably keep her friend, the twenty-something incompetent who is not a threat to her….

Youth and inexperience does not yield great teaching.  I have mentored many younger teachers and those with talent needed years to develop into great teachers with great classroom management skills, time management skills, pedagogical skills and so on.

Teaching is a science but it is also an art that takes time to develop.

New Teacher Project is a fraud,

If new teachers are not given the time, how will we ever develop???

And no one is devaluing older teachers, hopefully! We are just asking that other factors are taken into consideration!

Funny how TNTP issues basically the same report coming to the same conclusions on a fairly regular basis and each time it’s treated as news. I don’t suppose the millions they take in city contracts or the fact they’re in the business of placing new teachers has anything whatsoever to do with their conclusions. I can’t imagine what possible agenda they could have.

I am a teacher with 5 years of experience…. young compared to say someone who has worked 30 years. And maybe you might think it’s because of my lack of experience that I would say the following, but I think 30 years… 5 years… 15 years.. what does it matter. Either you’re a good teacher or you’re not. No matter how many years of teaching you have… if you’re good why be afraid of being evaluated by other factors besides your years of experience. It just seems that older teachers are afraid of a new system of lay offs that involves what really matters in the classroom – management and instructional delivery and whether students are learning. These should be the factors that decide whether a teacher stays or goes… not how long you have been employed and simply that. If you mentor new teachers great! You must be a good teacher to have that position. But the number of years has nothing to do with effectiveness in the classroom. I see plenty of awesome teachers who have been teaching 10 or less years… and some awfully unmotivated teachers who have been around 20+ years who are doing nothing to promote learning in their classroom. Of course experience does come with years… but so does burn out.

The New Teacher Project is hardly in a position to offer a credible opinion on this . OF COURSE they want senior folks laid off-THEY GET PAID TO RECRUIT AND TRAIN THE REPLACEMENTS.. more priavteers who know nothing about “the product” of teaching kids only how to turn a profit FOR THEMSELVES!!!!
If these private business folks know so much and their data is the end all be all-how come THE PUBLIC always has to bail them out? for exaple: Auto Industry, savings and Loan scandals, wall Street bamkrupt etc… give me a break -and they will save kids??
Tell Boston Bloomy to turn up his hearing aid. The scandals are just beginning to come toight on these sorry business world types and they will pass with Bloomy and Obamy and his basketball playing cro magnan man of an “Education secretary- pass the ball Arne I am going for a slam dunk on your bozo head!!! You can only fool people for so long and their number is up-

The above string reminds me…

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
– Mark Twain

Chris,

Every person will eventually reach their time in life that includes new teachers irrespective of their age. A teacher with five years of teaching experience will definitely have more insight than a first year teacher. Eventually, your years in the system will grow, if down the road the chancellor does not take the extreme step of eliminating of those teachers with 10 years in the system. Then, I guess you would be a little leery when its your turn to be targeted irrespective if you are competent or not.

Over twenty years ago I came into the system with the same conviction as you with the ideology that I have better ideas, approaches, methods, and techniques to help students than the older teachers who I felt should move on with their life. Within a few years, I realized why older teachers are called veterans and the importance of giving them the due respect they deserve.

I’ve seen it all. There are new teachers out there that should reconsider the teaching profession and go back to their prior profession and, yes, there are veteran teachers whose time have come to step aside. But, we should not have such a narrow vision of hastily making the decision of “you should not keep a job just because you’ve been around longer.”

Using your logical would you have a 3rd year resident doctor perform heart surgery over a veteran doctor? Would you have inexperience lawyer handle a serious law case over a seasoned lawyer? Would you like a recently licensed pilot take over a cross-atlantic flight over Sully, an experienced pilot who’s our nation’s hero?

You assume that teachers with 5 years of teaching should stay over those with more experience and if they’re not doing their job or they’re incompetent get rid of them. I truly agree with you about the incompetent part. If you cannot cut in this profession, then you should be cut whether you have 1 year or 10 years or more.

But, it is not our job to determine who stays or goes. You have administrators than must do their job and if a teacher is incompetent then they must follow the process that’s outlined in the teachers’ contract and the state ed. law, 3020a. The law was created so that no person would be dismissed “arbitarily and capriously”. Teachers have earned the rights of due process and no one, not even a teacher with very few years in the system, should question or challenge a law that has protected many teachers from termination from selection by vindicative principals.

Reflect for a minute that you have tenure, due process, and how the union has fought very hard to ensure that your due process is protected. When you have 20 years in the system, you will encounter the same situation and will definitely remember the importance of job protection.

“The hardest thing in life is to learn which bridge to cross and which to burn” – Laurence J. Peter

Don’t burn your bridge while you are still crossing it.

My child has been lucky to have had several excellent, veteran teachers, whose lessons positively glowed with understanding of not only the subject matter, but the character of the children they teach. He has also had young teachers who have proven themselves not only to be energetic and passionate about their teaching, but with the same, developing, understanding of their students their older colleagues have so carefully cultivated.
It saddens me greatly to see younger teachers and older teachers pitted against each other this way.

All the turmoil in the public schools has so disgusted me, I will remove my children and place them in Catholic school where the school is established, teachers are ALL veterans and using PROVEN, RESEARCH-BASED curriculums. I am tired of our children being used as experiments for the latest trends.

Peter: There you go again making bald assertions and giving incorrect facts. You could bang on your keyboard and be more correct and more substantive. Your fifth paragraph is almost verbatim what you posted yesterday about a different article.

For anyone who thinks that Peter here knows his stuff, please see proof otherwise by reading all his factual inaccuracies at the string at “Among city’s contract demands: flexibility to lay off teachers”

jodama…

I too work in a classroom where classroom management skills are required for learning to take place in the class. Yes, it requires CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT skills to control any classroom. Yes, years of experience does give you lessons on how to craft a good management system. And it sounds like you are doing a great job and you have formed good relationships with your students, which is a cornerstone to any classroom environment.

But again, you talk of age discrimination against those veteran teacher, but you too are discriminating against those who are younger. After reading the posts on this site it sounds like an echo of most veteran teachers – “The youngins just have no clue and can’t do anything right until they get some years under that belt.”

I guarantee you that when I walk into my classroom, my students would in 1 minute begin their work, and we wouldn’t need 5 minutes to get quiet. They would be quiet once they started working if that was what I asked of them. Why? Because that is the expectation in my room. That is the structure of my class. That is the way it works. That is the classroom environment I have developed over the course of the school year.

So, to that A/P and young teacher who were in your class… they need to take some management classes and read some educational research books, maybe even get some training from those who have great management styles… not get 20 years of experience. Because frankly, I have seen some pretty darn awful management styles of some teachers who have been around awhile. And I have seen some veteran teachers come running out of classes saying, “Thank God, you take over. I can’t handle them, nor do I want to. I’m too old for this crap.”

Chris,
I have too much work to do tonight to answer you in the complete manner in which I would want; however, I do want to posit this…imagine a system where there is no fairness and in which nobody would want to help anybody else because in this new world (since Bloomberg, Jack Welch and now Obama/Duncan) of education, we always get rid of the bottom 10 percent–whatever that is.  

You are right that there are some weak veteran teachers–there are weak younger teachers, weak middle of their career teachers and so on…..nonetheless, the seniority system seems to be the most fair…and I say that as someone who has been laid off (in the 1970′s). 

The whole notion that we can’t lay off our “best teachers who may not have worked in the system the longest.”  Doesn’t that speak of the new, in vogue ageism? 

I realize that your job is on the line if there are massive layoffs and I realize how stressful that is.  There should be no layoffs as class sizes of 34 are untenable.  Lay off the bureaucrats at Tweed; get rid of the overpriced, useless ARIS.  Stop all this useless, easily manipulated data.

But, also, Chris..respect your elders.   And realize this (as I did and still do)…every year I am in the classroom I become a better and more insightful teacher.  What I knew and did at year five was great, but I am so much more dynamic now…. 

And yes, there are teachers who are mediocre.  But those are the minority, wouldn’t you agree?

chris, they understand what you are saying. I have these same disagreements at my school with some of the veteren teachers (that have classroom management, producing results etc.). I think they are trying to be loyal and agreeing with your arguement may be viewed as not sticking with their peers. We all are educators and we see the TRUTH and they know it too

Chris, your premise of having the “best” in front of the neediest and more underserved students is valid…nevertheless, as far as I can see these Education Distortionists, that means anyone who uses the mantra “it is for the children”, will use the same argument to paint as many educators as they can “bad,” in order to justify their ends.

It is quite tricky to judge how good a teacher is, especially when these good qualities are ever changing, depending of the political winds, as well as all the created interests that the DoE has decided to meet.

Be not surprised that what people once considered “good” will within a very short while, in the present DoE that is 7 year’s time. The time it takes for you to become unaffordable to their books.

According to the DoE anyone will/can be considered a “good” teacher until prior of their reaching tenure.

As you have already notice, there is a lot of infighting among the experienced teachers and the newer ones, this is something intentional created by those above, all for a very sinister purpose, to make what was once a noble career into a new type of educational enterprise where labor and experience are second to the accountants, the bottom line.