Should teacher be fired

[happygirl]

This was on Fox Friends, about teacher being fired if there students aren't passing.

What do you all think? I'm against this there are so many reason why kids fail. It hardly fair to blame the teacher.

 

[taylor3297]

No I don't believe the teacher should be fired. I am an ex-teacher. I have had classes where it was very hard to get the kids motivated and no matter what I did the students really didn't care. Most in the class admitted to the principal that they just bubbled in answers on the end of year test.

Now if it can be proven the teachers methods aren't working, then a master teacher needs to come in and assist the teacher first before considering letting the teacher go.

 

[minniebeth]

We'd end up with a lot less teachers...
One school district I worked in, kids lived in deplorable conditions, fought lice, scabies on a daily basis and other than free breakfast and lunch had nothing to eat. Their parents could care less if they performed in school or not. School was free daycare. Life of a child was survival mode. Yeah, let's fire me because they can't pass state mandated standards...

Ok, now, I know that's not all of the U.S....
there are many districts where teachers are not living up to their accountability.

Education is such a hot topic for me, no easy solution and not just one solution. But we need to fix it, it's heading in a dismal direction...

 

[jamimb]

I am an assistant teacher. The teacher I work with is wonderful! She's motivated and truly has a gift for teaching but over half of our class this year is failing. This is in no way a reflection of what kind of teacher she is. If anything it's a reflection of what kind of parents they have! We just got a bunch of lazy kids this year that could honestly care less!!!

 

[luvmy3]

Of course not, its not the teachers fault their students are failing, its the parent's.

 

[java]

Initially I would say of course not- however if an entire class is failing- then a teacher should be observed to see if the teaching style might be the issue. Fired? Not sure but observed - yes.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

What city is this? I looked up teachers being fired over failing and there are many of them.

 

[Pixiedust34]

No. It is ultimately the student's responsibility to do the work and pass the course.

 

[robinb]

I think that if there is an ongoing issue with kids failing in a particular teacher's class then someonthing needs to be done. In that case the fault probably lies with the teacher and not the kids or parents. If the teacher cannot do his or her job then yes, they should be fired.

 

[Nette]

I don't think you can judge a teacher purely on the pass/fail of her students. Are the students improving? digressing? Are they engaged? What kind of feedback is there from the students and parents themselves? I do think that there should be some sort of randomized (perhaps even hidden) observation of teachers on a regular basis. But even that is subject to flaws because who knows if the observer knows what they're doing?

Minimally, to improve the teachers in our schools, there has to be some sort of motivation for the people who have the intelligence and the desire to help kids. Too many rules, low pay and even lower bars to become a teacher is often very discouraging to the people who would make the best teachers. Who wants to work in a thankless field?

I agree that the students and parents should also be held accountable, but if the entire team of three (parents, teacher, student) are not involved, success just isn't as likely.

 

[tw1nsmom]

I need more information on the specific case you're talking about. However...IF the majority of a teacher's class is failing and IF more than one or two years of their classes have failed, or IF that class has done well with previous years testing and failed miserably under her teaching, then yes, I think the teacher should be fired.

Other performance reviews and student levels at the beginning of the year should be taken into consideration, but if a teacher is continually failing to teach effectively, then they should be fired. In our fairly affluent suburban school district with high parental involvement their are a few teachers that should not be teaching. The majority of their classes are struggling and if their students pass standardized test it will be because the parents paid for expensive tutoring and it will be in spite of the teacher's ability not because of it.

I do know of one case (I think it's in Massachusetts) where the school has continually been listed as a failing school. The administration has been given a choice of making major changes or closing the school. They went ot the teachers with a proposal that they add more time to the school day and have tutoring sessions during free periods and lunch hours (they would still get at least the minimal lunch and breaks the law requires). The union and the teachers refused to work any additional time. The administration plans on firing all of them. In this case, they deserve to be fired.

 

[Hollywoodhaha]

I do not think they should be fired.

In my English class (I am a Junior), the teacher is wonderful. Only like 4 people and myself have an A in the class. She is fabulous, a great teacher, and does not give a lot of work. The other kids in the class just do not care. They complain, give excuses, say "nah, turning that in Tuesday does not work for me, how about Wednesday?"
They are just lazy and disrespectful.

 

[Hollywoodhaha]

There are some cases ..

My friend is in Algebra 2. She has made an A in math her whole life. She gets into this mans class and she is failing. She has the highest F in the class.
Nobody has above an F.
She does not understand a thing that the teacher 'teaches' because he does not teach well! She has tried, but after I taught her how to do the chapter work (I have a different teacher), she passed the exam with a 100%.

 

[PeterPan09]

Sure...right after they start firing parents for abdicating their responsibility.

Are there some teachers who should be fired? Of course. However, there seem to be a much larger number of parents today who should be "fired" because they can't be bothered to raise their own children and expect the teachers and the rest of society to do it for them.

I don't teach-but I have a lot of friends that do and the most common thing I hear from them is the difference between our parents and today's parents is when the teacher contacted our parents the first question was "What has my child done/not done and how can we correct it?" Now, the first question is "What did YOU do to my child and how are YOU going to fix it"

 

[merryweather20]

Yes. I remember going through school and some of the teacher's considered it a badge of honour to be able to say they once failed a whole class.

Lazy teachers like those would just start passing students along though. It wouldn't spur an improvement in their teaching skills.

 

[tinkntraining]

Just like in every other profession, there are some teachers who should have chosen a different vocation. A very small minority, but they are there, hidden amongst the gems that shine in the school district. I would say that if the majority of the class fails, year after year, then the responsibility falls directly on the teacher and not the parents/students. I don't think he/she should automatically be fired, maybe observed to see exactly what's going on behind closed doors. I think a probationary timeframe is warranted.

 

[tinkntraining]

Sure...right after they start firing parents for abdicating their responsibility.

Are there some teachers who should be fired? Of course. However, there seem to be a much larger number of parents today who should be "fired" because they can't be bothered to raise their own children and expect the teachers and the rest of society to do it for them.
I don't teach-but I have a lot of friends that do and the most common thing I hear from them is the difference between our parents and today's parents is when the teacher contacted our parents the first question was "What has my child done/not done and how can we correct it?" Now, the first question is "What did YOU do to my child and how are YOU going to fix it"

This, however, I totally agree with!

 

[Pigeon]

No. This fixation on the numbers to the exclusion of learning is destroying education.

Dh is a public high school freshman science teacher. He has a new principal, which is about par for the course for his district. They never stay more than 2-3 years.

This guy is all about the grades, period. He doesn't give a rat's behind about student learning, just the numbers. He wants to be able to show that he's raised grades as a bargaining chip for his next job.

So far, the principal has instituted a policy where teachers cannot give a child less than a 50 on anything. If the kid doesn't come to class, doesn't complete a single assignment or take a test, the kid gets a 50%. Somehow that math doesn't work well for me.

Dh has a class of 25 students, 20 of whom are special ed. By state law, these kids have to take the same exam and are held to the same standards as non-special ed students. Needless to say, about half are failing. For most of them, it is the first time they have to pass a state test. Most have abysmal math skills and many can barely read. Dh doesn't set the standard--the state does. A large percentage have horrendous attendance and maybe come to school one day in five.

The new principal is raking dh over the coals to try to get him to inflate the grades for these students. Principal does nothing to actually solve disciplinary or attendance issues. Principal will go into the online grade book and change kids' grades, knowing nothing about what they have mastered or the work they have done.

Up until recently, dh has loved teaching. He is great at what he does, and his kids' test scores for non-special ed students are consistently higher than any of the other teachers in his department. But dh is an honest, ethical person, and this pressure to lie about the students is just killing him.

 

[tw1nsmom]

This is a huge pet peeve for me. Children with special needs who can take the test, should take the test. However, passing shouldn't be the only goal. They should use the tests to see how far the students have progressed and how close/far they are to performing at grade level. They should use it as a way of identifying the students who are "almost there" and figuring out ways to help them get the rest of the way. They should take the test, but shouldn't be part of the pass/fail equation.

It's such a complicated topic. Having the children with special needs take the tests forces the schools to raise the bar on the education they're offering these students. DS has special needs, but only performs about 1 year behind in certain academic areas. He's ahead of his twin in others. I've had to fight for him to be given the opportunity to learn everything that his twin learns. Basic accommodation requests have been met with threats of putting him in a self-contained class (here the only self-contained classes are skills classes). I've been to a special ed. parents meeting where the superintendent told a group of us that the majority of our kids wouldn't go to college. My child is 9 years old and he's, at this point, just as likely to go to college as his twin sister is. He has many strengths and a few specific weaknesses, but we don't know what his ultimate limitations are and we need to give him the information he needs to succeed in life.

I truly hate all this testing, but prior to it being mandated, special needs students who were possibly capable of learning grade level material were often given an inferior education.

 

[Pigeon]

Personally, I think the one size fits all approach to standards is awful. While I agree that it is true that for some students the bar has been raised, for many other students, the bar has been considerably lowered.

Dh has watched as year after year more difficult concepts have been stripped from the state curriculum. You can compare Regents exams from fifteen years ago to the ones that are offered now, and they are now much less complicated and require less knowledge from students.

The tests themselves are tinkered with constantly to gain the desired political outcome, which sadly has very little to do with learning.