I hope everyone votes next week, and as you might expect, I have some views to share.
Teachers are not “guaranteed jobs for life.” My wife works at the elementary level on an annual contract. Her job performance is the responsibility of her principal, who does not bother. The curriculum she teaches is mandated 100 percent by the state, and her children’s performance is monitored through state testing. She has been in public school for seven years, and eight before that in Montessori. She makes 55K and pays $500+ for benefits monthly.
The first two years of “probation” are not like probation most of us know. She was not assured a job, could be moved at will, pulled out of the classroom, and did not know until the first or the 10th day of the school year if she would be hired or not. She would like to find a better job, and would expect five years of “probation” under the current proposition. We cannot afford that, best to stay in crappy job.
Please use common sense. Teachers are fired all the time, and this is what administrators are supposed to do. A local school administrator was quoted in a an article last week in the Tribune, to say something like “we don’t have any problem finding teachers,” in response to how this proposition will chase people away from teaching. Try finding a teaching job locally. Good for the administrator, not the teachers.
Charlie Rhyne
Environmental horticulture science senior