Bill makes firing teacher quicker (Huntsville Times)

[eppur_se_muova]

(This is the headline under which this story ran in the HT. It was authored by someone in the Montgomery Bureau of the HT and posted by al.com as an article from the B'ham News, with a headline much more "neutral" in tone -- just a warning to those trying to establish the original provenance of anything posted at the al.com site.)

Proposed bill would change tenure law in Alabama

By Kim Chandler -- The Birmingham News

MONTGOMERY -- Alabama legislators began work Wednesday on an overhaul of state tenure law aimed at making it quicker to fire a teacher or school employee.

A bill introduced in the House and Senate would end the practice of an independent arbitrator hearing dismissal appeals. The bill also would allow a teacher to be fired for a pervasive and consistent record of inadequate student achievement.

Teachers lined up to oppose the bill during a public hearing Wednesday, saying that, without an independent person to look over the shoulders of school boards, they would be vulnerable to being fired because of cronyism or school politics. But school superintendents and school board members told legislators that Alabama's tenure system is so broken they've had trouble firing employees with drug or other convictions.

"It is my view as an attorney this bill will bring back politics and personal decisions in the Alabama school system," said Fred Fohrell, a lawyer representing the Alabama Education Association. Fohrell said the legislation would abolish decades-old checks and balances in the dismissal process.

Anita Gibson, AEA president and an elementary school teacher, said teachers in the course of their jobs may make powerful parents angry and need the protection of an independent arbitrator.
***
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/04/proposed_bill_would_change_ten.html

The Comments after the article include the usual tall tales about lazy teachers and them goldurned union workers Up Nawth.

The red-is-right editorial staff of the B'ham News expanded the list of "good horror stories" (to borrow a term from the Reagan years) used to justify these changes. The obvious rebuttals are given pretty nicely in the paras above.

http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-commentary/2011/04/our_view_a_new_tenure_law_woul.html


While trying to locate this article, I came across this article from OK, with a similar headline, describing a similar situation:
more: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110418_19_A1_CUTLIN984886

Interesting quote from the article: "Why should school teachers be treated differently than any other person in the private sector?" ... suggesting that school teachers are not public employees, or that the speaker doesn't understand the implications of his wording.

The approach is the same in AL and OK (and apparently NV as well): Find one or two bad examples, and use them to justify radical reform while ignoring or denying the abuses which led to writing these necessary safeguards into law in the first place.

[Angry Dragon]

1. I wonder if elected officials would want to live under the same rules they

want for everyone else??

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Perhaps it should take 15,000 signatures to fire a teacher?

Or maybe they could only be replaced every four years ...

[bluestateguy]

3. This might make it easier to fire a few bad teachers

but it will also make it easier to sack teachers who dare to rock the boat or teach unpopular subjects in the classroom. Imagine a science teacher in Alabama getting canned for teaching evolution in the classroom, or a history teacher to dares to suggest (in Alabama of all places) that the South was NOT right in the Civil War.

Or perhaps the teacher who failed the star quarterback in math class, or the teacher who dares to question the iron hand of the school principal.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. Of course. It's beyond mindless. nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Interesting comment

Gretchen (GW) Wyler, Tulsa (3 days ago)
We have teachers that post here on the TW that this law was written for, kudos to our new Governor for a job well done.