The contest allowed anyone 13 and older to nominate the worst union-protected teachers in America through CUF's website www.TeachersUnionExposed.com. After receiving over 600 nominations, CUF has identified the ten worst and offered each of them $10,000 to quit the profession forever. The purpose of the contest was to illustrate that unions have made it so difficult and costly to get rid of bad teachers that it can be easier to pay them to quit.
"Unsurprisingly, none of the 'winners' chose to take the prize money," said CUF Executive Director Richard Berman. "When your job security is virtually guaranteed -- due to outrageous union tenure rules--regardless of your performance, why would you quit for $10,000?"
Had one of the chosen "ten worst" opted to take cash and quit teaching, he or she would also have had to allow his or her name to be made public. In the absence of any "winners" agreeing to take the money, the CUF will not be publicizing their names.
When Michelle Rhee spoke to us at the Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism conference this summer, she talked about an employee who cost the district in excess of $150,000 because of a mistake. She couldn't get rid of this employee immediately, but did change the employee's responsibilities--figuring the district would be better off paying just a salary rather than a salary plus costs of mistakes. And yes, she started monitoring this employee's performance for possible removal some day....
4 comments:
Down here in Texas, we are a right to work state, but teachers still have the option of joining a union or one of a number of teacher groups that provide legal representation and liability insurance. One of my colleagues who was building rep for the AFT affiliate stood before a group of assembled teachers and told them that they should join his group because "if they weren't any good representing us, I wouldn't have my job."
Message? They are proud of the bad teachers they protect.
It just occurs to me that Texas may be the proof that it isn't the union protection of lousy teachers that's an important part of why public education's in the, pardon the word, state it's in.
Texas isn't a standout in education performance since mandatory union representation can't be to blame. So what can be to blame?
"She couldn't get rid of this employee immediately, but did change the employee's responsibilities"
That's what happens in university departments when one faculty member is such a bad teacher that his chair gets nothing but complaints.
I worked in a university department as an office assistant (before I became a teacher). We had to have panic buttons installed because of one tenured professor. In addition to intimidating the office staff, he had multiple complaints from students who desperately needed to speak with him, but he was never in his office during mandatory office hours. He received a letter of censure, but kept getting raises.
Now I'm a high school teacher and I've noticed that the "hard core" union people are typically cancerous during meetings and professional development.
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