It is hard not to get emotional - sad and angry - when I read articles like this one. My son’s elementary school journal entry, “I love science”, still haunts me when I think of what he went through in high school at the hands of a teacher that ended his love of science. Six years later and through the tears of frustration from another son, she is still there, one of only two grade 12 physics teachers in the school. My husband and I have vowed that our third child will change schools before she wreaks her havoc again on this family in a crap shoot of timetabling.
Despite countless complaints from parents and students, she remains a laughing stock, but still fully employed with a gold-plated pension awaiting her. It almost seems worth it to pay her to leave. Immediately!!
This is so depressing.

Since there is no well established definition of “good” or “poor” performance I think that termination due to a “poor performance” means that presently it is politically sound to terminate for that reason.
Teacher cerificates that do not garantee any level of subject matter understanding have to be terminated before requiring anything from the teachers who got them.

I sent the following to our newspaper’s education blog regarding the Macleans article:

Dereliction of Duty in Failing to Remove Incompetent Teachers

(by Tunya Audain, comment published 090705, in The Report Card blog by Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun education reporter on topic: “Incompetent teachers safe from dismissal 090703) 

The answers to the problem of incompetence in the classroom are to be found in the very article that exposes the issue.  Please carefully re-read the excellent Macleans article – “Why It’s so hard to fire bad teachers”: http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2009/07/02/why-it’s-so-hard-to-fire-bad-teachers/

1.  “meetings with union representatives” are endless before inching forward to dismissal.  While teacher unions are indeed very diligent in their protection of members, this is normal, business as usual.  Why, in BC, for the first time ever in the world, we will even have a Masters Program at our Simon Fraser University starting this Fall in teacher unionism! Don’t expect sincere education reform efforts to come from this source.  Books on teacher protection of their turf are legion, e.g. “The Teacher Unions: How They Sabotage Educational Reform and Why” by Myron Lieberman 2000.

2.  “Inadequate teaching has been shown to contribute to dropout rates, low test scores and a dislike for school”.  This is child abuse plain and simple.  A researcher on the topic of teacher incompetence clearly identifies poor teaching as “educational malpractice”.  Law suits in education malpractice have notoriously been unsuccessful.  Why?  It’s hard to pinpoint, but superior economic resources by teacher unions in defense may be one reason.  In any case, discussion of this topic often cautions concerning the possibility of “opening the floodgates” so enormous is the problem. This does not mean that malpractice suits should be discouraged.  In fact, a successful one might just release the logjam now blocking the removal of bad teaching in the classroom.

3.  “the dismissal process is so onerous, the risk of reprisal from teachers’ unions so great” that it’s “not worth the effort”.  Surely, these reprisals should be itemized and put in their proper context.  Aren’t they part of an arsenal of intimidation, fear-mongering, and threats?  As such, aren’t they subject to some kind of legal remedy?  Or at the bare minimum, some training in circumventing these threats and reprisals? 

4.  “The schools boards and principals need to step up to the plate” says the president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association.  To excuse inaction because they are “scared” of the unions is abrogation of their responsibility.  “If we’re talking about incompetence, maybe they should be looking in the mirror.”  This fits the classic definitions of Dereliction of Duty – a) failure, through negligence or obstinacy, to perform one’s legal or moral duty, b) avoidance of any duty which may be properly expected, c) civilian dereliction is usually classed in common law as criminal or civil negligence, recklessness or malpractice.  Definitely, we should seriously explore this route to remedy.  Who can provide some procedures to follow using this angle?

5.  “passing the trash” or shuffling inadequate teachers to schools “whose parents won’t pitch a fit” says a lot about parents, doesn’t it?  To me, this means that parents have an enormous duty and the power to effect correction so that their children have a hope in meeting expectations.  Why then are parents so discouraged from having an effective role in their schools, especially in poorer socio-economic areas?  Why can’t parents have a wider choice of movement, using vouchers or tuition tax credits, to find the schools where their voice counts?

6.  “The whole system is in decay.”  This is a comment from Frank in discussion of this topic in the Macleans site as referenced above.  Isn’t this topic just another reason why we should have a real, wide-ranging, public Royal Commission on Education in BC before any further tinkering in the system?  Wouldn’t a new regime, with a new Minister of Education, and a government with an electoral majority like to hear from the people, examine serious research in the field, and reconnoiter before proceeding?  The models of the past need some serious re-examination. How come we seem to be living in the Dark Ages in education?

Many studies have shown that an effective teacher is more important in boosting student achievement than any other factor in the classroom—even more important than what method of teaching is used.  But our current system is particularly bad at ensuring teacher effectiveness, partly because university education departments have more to worry about than whether their B.Ed. graduates turn kids on to learning or turn them off.  And there is no control of those B.Ed. programs by the province’s department of education.  While doctors have a medical association that sets standards and disciplines its members, teachers have unions that automatically defend their members from charges of incompetence.  Teachers unions have to change their ways, and there are increasing numbers of teachers who want to see such change.

Thank you, Mark, for your addition to the discussion.  I have added your teacher training angle to the comments, now over 46, on the Vancouver site.  I’ve entitled my second essay on this topic:  Education Reform Requires Openness http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/reportcard/archive/2009/07/03/macleans.aspx#comments

The discussion is advancing, that is, new information is coming forward.  Besides your addition on teacher training, we can now also talk about “parent bashing”.  This in response to the obvious teachers who are feeling unfairly attacked, failing to address the issues, and who label the conversations as just more “teacher bashing”.  This sounds too knee-jerk and tries to squelch the momentum for reform.  They should re-read your contribution where you say “there are increasing numbers of teachers who want to see such change.”

In my presentation noted above, Ed Reform Requires Openness, I proposed the need for a national discussion group on this topic started by Macleans.  If anyone has any ideas, please suggest…

What will you call incompetent if you have more than 78% untrained teachers?

Thats the case of my country Pakistan.
I am running an institute here with the name of National Institute of Quality Education (NIQE) and need financial support to arrange teacher training workshops in my country.