Reply #38: Disagree

[mr715]

Does experience = skill?

There are some really, really bad teachers that are comfortable in their job security and use seniority to do less work. Seniority is only useful if it is used WITH performance to judge the value of a particular teacher.

In teaching, there is constantly new ideas and research coming out and young people tend towards more flexibility and willingness to accept change. A lot of this comes from not KNOWING about the art of teaching and being immersed in it. This is the TFA/TF model and it has shown massive results in my school!

That said, it takes about 3 years to make a competent teacher and a lifetime to make a perfect teacher. If a senior teacher is producing results, s/he should not be punished to favor younger teachers, but they are not inherently more skilled, nor more valuable.

Judge performance by student growth with a fair metric and then we'll talk.