ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society

by John Weaver, Editor-At-Large

With impending changes in New York City and Ohio public schools, the proper mechanisms for disciplining and removing public school teachers are the subject of national debate. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomburg is assembling a team of lawyers, led by a new Teacher Performance Unit, to help principals build cases against tenured teachers who they believe are not up to the job. The plan will cost $1 million a year and seeks to increase the number of tenured teachers who are ousted from the system; currently one-hundredth of 1 percent of tenured teachers in New York City are removed for ineffective performance.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the city’s teachers union, claimed that this justified city teachers’ fears. “We’ve always been concerned that the first thing that would happen after somebody put out progress reports would be principals would go after teachers,” she said. “Basically, it’s signaling to principals that rather than working to support teachers, the school system is going to give you a way to try to get rid of teachers.”

Dan Weisberg, the chief executive for labor policy and implementation at the city’s Education Department, countered by saying that “I believe very strongly that the number of these struggling tenured teachers is very small compared to the total number of teachers, but even if it is 1 percent, even half of 1 percent, we have to address it.”

In Ohio, the State Board of Education voted recently to require the education department to publicly release the reason any teacher is disciplined, even if it is based on a sealed conviction, and to automatically revoke the teaching license of anyone who is convicted of a serious crime. Serious crimes include murder, kidnapping and rape.  These proposals will now be sent to the state legislature to be enacted as law.

Recently, Ohio legislators also passed legislation that would require the state Department of Education to create a code of conduct for educators and to provide specific punishments for certain infractions of that code. That bill is awaiting action by Gov. Ted Strickland and is part of an on-going effort to create stiffer discipline rules for Ohio teachers.

Michele Prate, spokeswoman for the Ohio Education Association, one the state’s teachers unions, expressed some concern, saying that “We want to maximize student safety while balancing the due process rights of educators.” The editorial board for the Cincinnati Enquirer responded that “No one is suggesting that teachers accused of misconduct do not have rights. Most teachers deserve the trust we give them. But when it comes to allegations of violence and sexual misconduct, the weight belongs on the side of student safety.”

These efforts join an increasing debate about tenure, removal of teachers and disciplining educators. One of the biggest questions is who in the schools should have the authority to remove supposedly underperforming teachers. Although the frequent assumption is administrators, others suggest a form of peer review.

Under peer review, master teachers try to help struggling teachers. If that doesn’t work, the master teachers can recommend dismissal. As Richard D. Kahlenberg writes: “[T]eachers are even harder on colleagues than principals are, because a fourth-grade teacher doesn’t want to get stuck with kids who haven’t learned anything in third grade.” He goes on to explain: “For such a system to work well, only exemplary teachers should be placed on review committees, and peer review programs to rid [districts] of the very worst teachers must be supplemented by innovative programs to replace them with the very best.”

Either way, there is evidence to suggest that removal of ineffective teachers is an important tool for school administrators. In Boston, the public school system created a system of pilot schools in 1994 as an alternative to its system of larger high schools. A recently published study found that graduation rates were significantly higher for pilot school students than Boston public schools as a whole – 75.7% v. 52.5% – and one of the suggested reasons is that pilot schools have more control over removing teachers.