teacher tenure

Reasons that I support teacher tenure (and how you should vote and lots of links!)

maestramalincheLeave a comment

And here, at last, is my list of:

Reasons that I support teacher tenure:

(gathered from my own and close colleagues’ personal professional experiences)

I can advocate for students when I stand up and talk to my administration and make a complaint when they are not giving recent newcomer refugee students access to qualified teachers and curriculum. I can take this complaint to others and make my administration change course.

I can advocate for students when I write a letter to the PTO and complain about an administrator not managing students well at a dance, and thus allowing sexual harassment to occur.

I can advocate for students when I complain that it is 15 degrees hotter in my room than it is outside and that learning isn’t happening and the students need a fan.
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teacher pay / teacher tenure

maestramalincheLeave a comment
It’s been a long time since I posted to you all. I am going to try to distill my on-going emotional and professional thoughts on teacher tenure, teacher pay and teacher greatness over the next few postings.
I had a great deal of sadness when the Vergara trial won in California to eliminate teacher tenure. And yet, there are some bad teachers out there. We’ve all had them, and our kids have had them. But, in spite of this, most teachers are fairly good, and most just want more support, better working conditions for themselves and their students, and hey, many of them want better pay.

Great interview with Linda Darling-Hammond on teacher tenure

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I wish I weren’t still reading about education on our spring break trip to Venice, Rome and Pompeii, but I can’t be stopped!

We had a wonderful guided tour today of Pompeii and Herculaneum with a historian named Francesca. Of course I asked her about Italian education, as I do every parent I talk to from another state or country. She bemoaned the lack of history and geography lessons in her elementary school aged children’s schooling. I commiserated with her on the issue- what can I say? This seems to be a common theme for us as well.

Vergara vs. California.

This is the case that will make or break teacher tenure in California, and possibly the rest of the country.

Is it because teachers get tenure that poor kids in poor districts have bad teachers? Or is it bad administrators and bad teacher working conditions that cause underfunded schools that serve poor kids to have more than their fair share of bad teachers? There are so many issues here, and the court’s decision next week may, in fact, get rid of teacher tenure in California. This is hugely important to me, to my son enrolled in an underfunded school district, and to all of our kids throughout CA.
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