Arizona law changes way teachers contract with districts

[proud2BlibKansan]

The Arizona Legislature made sweeping changes to state teacher contracts earlier this year, removing seniority, salary and contract guarantees.

Changes under House Bill 2011 mean that school districts will be prohibited from using tenure or seniority as a factor in determining which teachers can be laid off. Additionally, school districts no longer have to honor seniority when they rehire.

Gone is an April 15 deadline that required school districts to notify teachers of their contract status for the following school year.

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Tying teacher salaries to student achievement is one of the pillars of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's guidelines for the $4.3 billion "Race to the Top" federal education grants.

"This is where the United States is going and we're just with the early leaders," Crandall said.

more . . . http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2009/11/23/20091123edcontracts1123.html

[madfloridian]

1. It happening quickly in many states now. Arne's money...

is working.

[tonysam]

33. They are doing it in Nevada, too,

and the unions are right in there joining forces with those who want to destroy public schools.

[donco6]

2. I have a strong suspicion they're working on that here, too.

Though the big problem here is we are local control, and there is no "state" contract with teachers. But that doesn't mean they couldn't do something similar.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. We don't have a state contract either

But state laws govern the way our contract is negotiated.

Looks like they lost a lot of rights in AZ. Damn.

[donco6]

5. I'm thinking the end run will be the state forcing districts to adopt -

language in their contracts that mimic this legislation, or forego some kind of state funding that no one can do without.

[Swamp Rat]

4. They did that in Louisiana, then laid off the best and highest paid teachers with seniority

immediately.

Now they are hiring 18-20 year olds with little or no training through groups like "Teach for America." The chaos has already begun... x(

[Nikki Stone1]

8. Now we understand what "Teach for America" was all about.

Teaching will go from being a profession to a 2-3 year volunteer job.

[tonysam]

34. Teachers will have "careers" of only 2 or 3 years

never ever reaching vesting in retirement, and tenure will be done away with just by not renewing contracts of those teachers who are newbies but not TFA temps. They will be fired in their third or fourth year and never be allowed to teach anywhere again, which is the case now for fired teachers, since state licensing boards assume fired teachers have done criminal acts which include acts with children. Never mind the vast majority of terminations have nothing to do with misconduct with kids or crimes.

The only exception to this are the nepotism hires, who will be allowed careers regardless.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. We have Teach for America here

and since the district signed a contract with them, certified teachers got laid off this summer while Teach for America interns kept their jobs. :mad:

[47of74]

6. In a way I'm glad my favorite teacher didn't live long enough to see the

...shitting and pissing that's being done on the teaching profession by people determined to dumb down this country to the point of destruction.

[msongs]

7. more Change you can believe in from obama's administration friends nt

[phasma ex machina]

11. What does Obama have to do with a local AZ issue?

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. These changes are coming from the US Dept of Ed

Obama's education agenda is far worse than Bush's.

[phasma ex machina]

22. OK. Sorry about inflicting my own ignorance on you. nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. No problem. It's all pretty complicated.

[tonysam]

35. He is the most anti-public education president in American history

George W. Bush has nothing on him for sheer hatred of public schools.

[Karmadillo]

9. Wait until President Obama finds out about this. I'm sure he'll put a stop to it.

nt

[phasma ex machina]

12. Are you serious? nt

[Karmadillo]

25. You just wait.

nt

[Hannah Bell]

50. irony, right?

[tonysam]

36. No, he won't. He's the one, through flunky Arne Duncan, who is destroying public ed

with this "Race to the Top" blackmail money.

[Karmadillo]

41. Oh ye of little faith.

nt

[Greyhound]

38. Yep, it's all part of his new "No School Left Standing" plan. n/t

[Karmadillo]

44. Privatization will allow the market to work its magic on the public schools.

nt

[Greyhound]

54. Do I detect a note of sarcasm there?

Or, perhaps a symphony?
:rofl:

[Smarmie Doofus]

10. Well I'm sure this will prove to be a powerful inducement....

>>>>>hat school districts will be prohibited from using tenure or seniority as a factor in determining which teachers can be laid off. Additionally, school districts no longer have to honor seniority when they rehire.>>>>>

.... for talented, bright, dedicated people to make a career of teaching.

Let's lower the salary while we're at it.

[tonysam]

31. Those talented dedicated YOUNG people, and face it, this

scheme is designed to create wholesale age discrimination, will be shitcanned when they have too many years in.

[boppers]

13. How about hiring the best workers, not the ones who had a desk the longest?

I grew up in AZ. I had some really horrid teachers who viewed students and classrooms as a means of a living, and really great teachers who would have taught (and occasionally did) for the sheer joy of it.

How long they were teaching, in my experience, had very little to do with it. It may be different in other places, but my experience was that there were a lot of students in classrooms where there wasn't much teaching going on.

[Fumesucker]

15. OK, now tell us how to decide who are the *best* teachers..

Test scores?

The opinions of their students?

[boppers]

42. Student SAT's?

Student IQ scores?
Student literacy?

Oh, I forgot, *any* objective measurement is a "bad thing".

[Hannah Bell]

51. 3rd graders don't take sats. IQ is supposedly a measure of inherent ability &

not "taught". The norming of IQ tests also means that 2/3 of the population will cluster around "100". Doesn't work for special ed classes either.

"Literacy" - teachers are already evaluated on student achievement as well as other criteria.

oh, i forgot, easy to attack teachers as a class while still not having a clue wtf you're talking about.

[boppers]

60. Wow, we could have a very long discussion about thought and learned IQ.

The journals are a better place for that, though. It's not simple.

So, let me take a step back, (if you're still listening), and explain to you that I was in an AZ High School with students who didn't know to write a sentence.

Not only that, they didn't understand algebra. I'm not talking trigonometry, they didn't understand a concept like a "variable".

These are 18-year olds. The majority of them were, well, average.

Families failed them.

Teachers failed them.

We can't make rules about families.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. So because you had some horrid teachers, that means this is justified?!

Good grief. Some logic there.

[boppers]

45. Some of my teachers had blonde hair. Some were brown.

The logic is that teaching skill matters more than hair color, or years teaching, or "tenure".

Is a really good teacher, with 25 years of experience, worth tossing aside because a crap teacher, with 26 years of students, who hated them, learned nothing?

[proud2BlibKansan]

47. I had a bad doctor once

So did my mom. Let's change the way we pay ALL doctors! Let's fuck with their contracts and take their legal rights away!

An accountant screwed up my tax return. Let's go after ALL accountants.

Now tell me why this logic makes sense. This is what is being proposed.

[boppers]

58. Would you treat doctors better, based on their years of work?

Regardless of quality of work?

Would you treat accountants better based on their years of work?

Regardless of quality of work?

So, a shitty doctor/accountant who has worked for 15 years should be preferred over a better one with only 2 years of experience?

That's the logic. It makes no sense to give explicit preference to seniority. Seniority can lead to skill, and experience, but equating seniority with gaining skill and experience doesn't make sense.

[tonysam]

29. Again, somebody who thinks because he or she was in school, he or she is an expert

You have NO idea of the public school culture, which is riddled with nepotism and teacher abuse, while the administrators get off scot free.

This bullshit about tenure being "lifetime" employment, but in fact is only the "right" of terminated teachers to have a kangaroo hearing which is almost always stacked in favor of school districts, needs to stop.

[boppers]

43. Please explain the bullshit.

I'm not being cute, I want to hear another voice.

[proud2BlibKansan]

48. Tenure does not mean teachers can't be fired

It does not guarantee lifetime employment, even if the teacher is incompetent.

It is merely a guarantee of due process, which ALL employees should have.

[boppers]

61. Due process makes sense.

Of course, it goes both ways. It's not always "right", but it's process.

[Dinger]

14. I Can't Believe Our President Condones This Shit

K & R for the truth kick.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. It's pretty sad, isn't it?

But hey, according to posters in this thread, because someone had a bad teacher, this is all justified.

I had a bad doctor once. Let's lower all doctors' pay and treat them like shit!

[Dinger]

23. Touché

Sad indeed.

[marshall]

24. There's a reason those at the top send their kids to private schools

They make laws and promote legislation for the rest of us, without having to worry about it impacting the top notch education of their own children. It's a perk of the elite.

[tonysam]

30. Of course, he's in bed with the privatizers n/t

[ChoralScholar]

20. As a teacher, I know there are some of my colleagues

who are just drawing a paycheck and doing just enough to get by. These folks should move on to something else.

That being said - I don't want a system where I could get fired/non-renewed just because my principal doesn't like me or something I did.

There must be accountability built into the system for the districts that choose to non-renew or terminate - there should be documentation, and more than just one administrator should be involved.

Administrators are people, and people can be petty. I've worked for principals that can change their opinion of you at the drop of a hat, over something that doesn't make any difference. I don't want my job security, and the financial security of my family tied to that person alone.

[tonysam]

32. And those people aren't held accountable--EVER

The deck is clearly stacked in favor of principals because nobody is really watching them at all, while they can abuse the almost unlimited power they have to destroy teachers' careers.

Mine was ruined by two assholes; one who retaliated against me, and the other was totally negligent in her job and illegally dismissed me when I got ill.

[Odin2005]

21. Senority is BS.

Just a way to protect crappy teachers that have been teaching for a long time.

[Dinger]

26. You're Painting With A Pretty Broad Brush There Buddy

And you've done it before.

[QC]

39. That's the only brush he has.

At least he didn't accuse them all of being Baby Boomers, though.

Small mercies and all that.

[montanto]

56. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever seen posted on DU.

[Orsino]

28. The daycaring of our schools continues apace. n/t

[Greyhound]

37. There is nothing so screwed up in Arizona that they can't make worse.

Every time you think, "Once again we are at the bottom of the pile, maybe now they'll fix it", they come along with a new scheme to make it even worse.

[Nikki Stone1]

40. Notice that Arizona and Florida contain a huge proportion of retirees

Many of them don't give a shit about the future generation, especially if those kids speak Spanish, are non-white, or compete for resources.

[MadHound]

46. One of the local districts in the area has mentioned

That they're going to be going to some sort of merit based pay.

We're rushing towards a two tier education system, and screwing teachers in the process. One has to wonder with all of this if there is a deliberate plan to dumb down each and every upcoming generation. That's what it certainly looks like.

[proud2BlibKansan]

49. Has that local district also mentioned fully funding those classrooms?

That's the latest insult in MO - budget cuts that eliminate money for classroom supplies.

[MadHound]

53. Fully funding?

:rofl:

Got to laugh right now, otherwise I'm going to tear my hair out worrying. I did my student teaching this fall, loved it, can't wait to get back in the classroom. But the trouble is that all the districts around here have been cutting budgets and cutting teachers. The middle school I taught at has two-three vacant classrooms, no teachers to fill them, no money to pay the teachers. I'm not some young things, footloose and fancy free who can go to where the jobs are. I've got a home, a family, and am essentially limited to a thirty mile radius. All of the districts in that area have cut funding and teachers, so I truly hope that somebody, somewhere moves on so that I can find a job in the spring. Otherwise I'm SOL.

But yeah, they're not fully funding classrooms around here, at least not in some of the districts. Columbia still seems to be doing so, so was the district I student taught in, but some of the other rural districts around here are starting to cut corners.

It's getting crazy out there.

[Hannah Bell]

52. i think there is. & the scale will be money. a few exceptions will jump

the scale, but ed & job potential are going to become ever more tightly attached to money & family background. hereditary class system.

it's going to be taxpayer funded charters to start, then defunded, forcing anyone with money into private charters, leaving the poor alone in ever-worse schools -- daytime jails, maybe.

[montanto]

55. Stunning.

Obviously teachers have become so threatening to the mega-money "failure and remediation" machine that drives standards and curriculum that we've become the internal Taliban. No consolation to the experienced teachers in Arizona preparing to lose their positions, but we'll still organize in the guts of their glorious charters and try to take back education from there. Clearly politicians and corporate poobahs don't understand what that expensive experience buys society. Oh well, lose is the new win. Kids will get less out of their education, but boy howdy, think how much tax money we can harvest getting rid of all the old teachers, training new teachers, getting them ready to fail, allowing them to fail, then having to change the system back again. Perfect! Do your job once, get paid twice!

[Angry Dragon]

57. IDIOTS!!!!!

[Selatius]

59. "Race to the Top" huh? Obviously, somebody's fucking losing ground here. nt