USAToday, July 17, 2008, published an editorial titled “Teacher protection racket.” The editorial stated that in New York City, 8 teachers were fired for incompetence in 2006-07. That’s one tenth of one percent of the 55,000 NYC public school teachers.

The cost to get rid of each of these teachers was $225,000 and required 150 hours of principal time. That’s why most NY State school districts (including those in Monroe County) don’t even bother to eliminate incompetent teachers.

In Chicago, only 3 out of every 1,000 teachers received an unsatisfactory rating. 90% got top ratings! Yet Chicago is one of the most troubled urban districts.

Why does this situation exist? Largely because of the power of teacher’s unions.

Per the editorial: “Unions have to realize that educating kids is more important than protecting inept members.”

You can read the full editorial at:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/07/our-view-on-edu.html

How does this editorial relate to Brighton? We certainly have an excellent school district.  And I’m sure the majority of our teachers are excellent.  But:

• It would be interesting to know the statistics related to our teacher evaluations.
• It would be interesting to know if Brighton has ever fired an incompetent teacher.

Our teacher salaries and benefits certainly are competitive with any other school district.  Are we getting the best teachers and eliminating those that are not competent?

And the next time you hear that the Teacher Union is ONLY concerned “about the kids”, read this USAToday editorial.