http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1059§ion=ArticleE-3... The Career Killer that no one will address
Kathy Jacobs - January 06, 2010
Chicago Public School teachers ignore the E3 at their peril. Once a teacher is served with an E3 Notice of Unsatisfactory Performance, her career is over. One would assume that a guaranteed career killer like the E3 could be instantly and perfectly explained by every teacher in the Chicago Public School system. Not only is this not the case, but a majority of teachers have never even heard of an E3. This oblivion can prove catastrophic since the special evil of the E3 is that not only is the teacher fired, but her entire career is labeled as unsatisfactory.
During the years Arne Duncan was Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools, he encouraged a dictatorial version of the role of school principals, just as he encouraged dictatorship from the "CEO" perch he was elevated to by Mayor Richard M. Daley. During the time Duncan was Chicago schools chief (2001 - 2008), he ensured that principals regularly increased the number of teachers receiving the E-3. Many of the principals and other executives promoted by Duncan has no teaching experience or any other knowledge of the work of public school teachers (Duncan himself was plucked from obscurity by Mayor Daley in 2001 to replace Paul Vallas as CEO of CPS, despite the fact that Duncan had no education background or credentials). Substance photo taken at Dyett High School on September 8, 2008, a few months before Duncan became U.S. Secretary of Educaton, photo by George N. Schmidt. Illinois law (105 ILCS 5/24A-5f) states that "
henever, in the opinion of the principal, after personal observation in the classroom on at least two (2) different school days, unless the tenured teacher has no classroom duties, the service of a tenured teacher is considered unsatisfactory, the principal of the school shall notify the tenured teacher in writing, using the Form E3, Evaluation of Unsatisfactory Service of a Tenured Teacher." (CPS Teacher Evaluation Plan and Handbook Of Procedures – p. 16) Immediately, a 90 day remediation process locks into place. At this point the teacher has no rights. She has to comply with the process or she will be dismissed.
The principal simply needs to fill out some minimal paperwork and file it with Human Resources. His stated reasons for the E3 don’t have to make sense. No one will challenge his opinion. The Board of Education doesn’t care about teachers. The Illinois legislators on the Senate and House Education Committees don’t even respond when they are questioned about the efficacy of the law. The Chicago Teachers Union is toothless when it comes to defending against the E3.
Some years ago principals were mandated to read aloud at a faculty meeting early in the school year the Remediation Process for Unsatisfactory Tenured Teachers (Article 39-5). No one listens. No one listens! Young teachers assume that the E3 is targeted at older teachers and doesn’t apply to them. Superior and excellent teachers assume it is targeting some rare occasion where a satisfactory teacher might completely deteriorate and need to be removed for the good of the children.
The law was perhaps originally well-intentioned—designed to protect children from someone who might have experienced a mental or physical breakdown. The assumption has always been that such a situation is the result of aging and only a few older teachers might qualify for an E3. Much to the contrary, however, given the current high stress level at CPS, one doesn’t find many teachers hanging on past retirement age into their dotage. The E3 has morphed into a tool of reprisal and revenge, used by principals to rid themselves of unwanted teachers.
Part of the relentless bashing of public school teachers from corporate America involves the propaganda claiming that a "school leader" can be generated in a few months out of some kind of corporate executive with no knowledge or children and no teaching experience. As a result of decades of propaganda foisting programs like "New Leaders for New Schools" and "Teach for America" on the public schools, the USA has a recent history of vicious teacher bashing, while promoting many of the crooks and incompetents who brought the world economy to its knees. Since January 2010, Ron Huberman has hired more executives with MBAs or "CTAs" (experience at the Chicago Transit Authority) into $100,000 executive positions of power at CPS. But the process began long before Huberman. The first announcement of "New Leaders for New Schools" in Chicago was made by Paul Vallas and Gery Chico in 2000, following the victory of George W. Bush. "New Leaders" was paid for by masses of corporate dollars and headed by veterans of the U.S. Department of Education from the days of the Clinton administration. As the selection by Barack Obama of Arne Duncan has shown, the teacher bashing agenda of corporate America and its version of 'school reform' is a bi-partisan affair. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.A great many factors have combined over the past several years to damage the reputation of American schools. Rather than address the problems honestly, politicians look around for a quick fix or, better yet, scapegoats. The E3 has yet to reach its full potential as a weapon of career destruction because it takes a particularly asocial and amoral principal to falsely label a superior or excellent teacher as unsatisfactory. That has the same earmark as lying under oath. Not all principals are ready to sink that low. The current mob of managers wouldn’t recognize good teaching if it bit them in their rigorous spreadsheets. What they do recognize, though, is the bottom line, so high-priced veteran teachers are targeted with E3s.
<snip>
Teachers are not being assisted with or advised about the inimical law known as the E3. The Chicago Teachers Union should be leading a campaign to get this law repealed. They are not. A grass roots movement among teachers to protest Illinois law (105 ILCS 5/24A-5f) is going to have to evolve if teachers hope to escape future unjust attacks. The immediate measure that individual teachers must take in this battle is to arm themselves with awareness and knowledge about destructive tools at the disposal of principals. They must also remember that everything that’s wrong with public education does not rest on the backs of the teachers. It doesn’t even begin with teachers. Let’s hope that someone will soon take up the battle cry that the solution is not to get rid of teachers.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
