Firing "creationism" teacher cost schools over $900,000 - (Ohio Teacher Tenure Act)

[Still a Democrat]

When the Mount Vernon school board decided to fire eighth-grade science teacher John Freshwater for teaching creationism, a 70-year-old state law allowed him to demand an administrative hearing.

Last week, almost two years and 6,500 pages of hearing transcripts later, Freshwater still got fired, but the hearing cost the district more than $900,000.

Now, key state lawmakers say that some provisions in the 1941 law - the Ohio Teacher Tenure Act - need a second look.

"I'm sure we will address this issue this term," said state Rep. Gerald L. Stebelton, a Republican from Lancaster who is the incoming chairman of the Education Committee. "It is so difficult for school districts and superintendents to terminate a teacher for cause because of the cost. A lot of time, they just are not willing to face it and incur those costs with the risk of losing."

...

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/01/13/copy/expense-of-freshwater-hearing-stirs-talk-of-reform.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

[sakabatou]

1. *facepalm*

Well, at least the teacher's out...

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. The "creation science" hater in me feels that the loser should pay all the costs...

but the sensible part of me knows that would be an totally ignorant rule.

if I were in charge, I'd apply it only to religious nutcases who bring suit because of ludicrously ignorant assholery.

[bluestateguy]

3. Careful what you wish for. You might get it.

A lot of teachers unions apologists seem to approve of such policies.

But remember that such policies can also be used to protect a RW fundamentalist teacher who abuses his authority too.

[Still a Democrat]

4. Tenure is about defending good or bad teachers, regardless

The idea a "progressive" organization would drain nearly a million dollars from schools defending this is beyond absurd.

[rfranklin]

6. The union did not do this, the teacher did...

Read the story. One crazy gumming up the system isn't a good argument for throwing out tenure. The rightwingers who want to "reform" the education system want to squash the unions and establish charter schools with undertrained, underpaid novices.

[Still a Democrat]

20. So the union favors repeal?

The system allows a crazy to gum up the works to the tune of $900,000, change it.

[Hannah Bell]

22. the system allows lawyers to charge $890,000 too. why aren't you complaining about that instead

of teachers?

[Still a Democrat]

23. Obviously the act allows for that

Shall we just complain or reform?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

27. Because what lawyers charge is not up to the state. N.T.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. There have been some other horror stories along the same lines in the M$M recently

educational rubber rooms

[Fumesucker]

5. Hmm.. An interesting story..

We really, really need to be able to get rid of teachers more easily because there might be another creationist science teacher out there.

Ah, I know.. Charter schools that are for profit, in right to work states it wouldn't take any time at all to get rid of a creationist science teacher.

[Still a Democrat]

11. School boards are elected and accountable to voters

I have no problem with giving schools a freer hand in getting rid of bad teachers. If it gets misused, board members will be held accountable. This isn't like a for profit corporation.

[Hannah Bell]

13. not in mayoral control venues. which many of the biggest districts are.

i'd prefer people have basic labor protections than rely on the "goodwill" of a 7-person board.

which is often composed of:

leading businesspeople or their reps
christian fundies

[Still a Democrat]

19. Mayors are elected as well

It isn't basic labor protections when a case costs $900,000.

[Hannah Bell]

21. so what if mayors are elected? one person shouldn't control all hiring & firing decisions.

especially when they're elected via the power of money to buy headspace & votes.

and if you'd read the story, you would have known the union had nothing to do with it & it was the first such case in the district's history.

who elected these guys, btw?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x233539

[Fumesucker]

15. I've been around local politics enough to have most of my illusions rudely shattered.

And charter schools are not necessarily under a regular board anyway, which was kind of one of my points.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

25. Simply stating an opinion in a sarcastic tone does not refute it.

I know little about the relevant laws - it's possible that this was all a horrible abuse of them - but I would say that it is pretty much ipse facto true that if it costs $900,000 to dismiss a teacher who is teaching creationism then you need to be able to get rid of teachers more easily.

It does not, of course, follow that charter schools are a good idea.

[Fumesucker]

28. I was just pointing out how convenient this story is to the charter school movement..

I thought it was interesting that this particular story of teacher firing made it to the news.

The story couldn't be tailored better to swing liberal audiences against teachers unions and tenure.

[DeadEyeDyck]

7. Would they have fired a Moslem teacher?

Moslems are creationists.

[Ohio Joe]

10. If that teacher were teaching creationism instead of science as this one was, yes.

Just for being Muslim.... in Ohio maybe.

[social_critic]

24. Not all Moslems are Creationists

Here's a quote from a NY Times article on this subject:

"Research led by the Evolution Education Research Center at McGill University, in Montreal, found that high school biology textbooks in Pakistan covered the theory of evolution. Quotations from the Koran at the beginning of the chapters are chosen to suggest that the religion and the theory coexist harmoniously.

In a survey of 2,527 Pakistani high school students conducted by the McGill researchers and their international collaborators, 28 percent of the students agreed with the creationist sentiment, “Evolution is not a well-accepted scientific fact.” More than 60 percent disagreed, and the rest were not sure."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/science/03islam.html

I do find your comment "moslems are creationists" to be very interesting, it is as if you had chosen to take a stab at a particular religion - and picked on Islam because of the climate of islamophobia we see in the USA today.

Being agnostic, I really don't care about your particular religious beliefs, but I do care when people discriminate on the basis of religion. For example, if you use the following article to throw stones at Judaism, I also take exception.

http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n03_orthodox_judaism_and_evolution.html

Quoting:

"Denial of evolution is a defining characteristic of education in Orthodox Judaism. But what does the most modern segment of Orthodox Judaism — the small number of students permitted to go to a public university and be exposed to non-censored scientific knowledge — believe about evolution and other scientific issues? The sample of 176 Orthodox Jewish students surveyed showed almost complete denial of evolution and other central tenets of modern science (such as the age of the universe)"

I think most of us are fully aware Christian fundamentalists have a tendency to deny evolution and prefer some form of Creationism. What's not usually discussed is the tendency for religious fundamentalists in other religions to also have a tendency to be creationists.

It should also be clear that belief in supernatural gods isn't tied inflexibly to belief in creationism. In other words, one can be a praciticing Christian, Jew, or Moslem, and feel Darwin is A-OK. One can also believe in Creationism, and be a quality member of society.

I hope this topic shouldn't be used to attack Muslims in the US. They already have enough problems facing discrimination and violence, and we as a society don't benefit when islamophobes post garbage against them.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

26. Possibly the relevant question is "would they have hired a Muslim teacher?"... N.T.

I may be being unduly cynical about attitudes to Muslims in the USA, but what I have read does not fill me with enthusiasm.

[Viking12]

29. He wasn't fired for being a creationist. He was fired for burning a cross on a student's arm.

[dsc]

30. He was actually fired for the cross incident

and for teaching creationism instead of the curriculum that the schools told him to teach.

[Hannah Bell]

8. how come this isn't about lawyers' excessive pay, since most of the money went to the district's

law firm?

why is an exceptional case (so called in the article) evidence for destruction of tenure?

these kind of cases aren't the only ones district lawyers handle, nor the biggest cost-generator.

[hughee99]

9. +1

Perhaps my math is poor, or i don't understand the subtleties of legal billing, but the district's lawyer only billed $35K, and with the court reporter and security, it came to almost 100K, so what the fuck was the other $800K for if not for the lawyer on the case? I'm sure it's not for a bunch of paralegals that worked on the case.

"Shepherd billed $35,749; the court reporters, another $45,747. Security for the case cost $7,641."

[Hannah Bell]

12. no clue, but it says most of the money went to the district lawyers:

"Most of the money - $813,628 as of last Friday - went to pay the law firm that represented the district."

[hughee99]

16. As, sorry, I misread it.

I thought Shepherd was the lawyer from the firm who actually handled the case for the school district, but he was the hearing officer.

I was wondering why the lead lawyer only billed $35k, but the firm got $800K, but Shepherd wasn't the lawyer.

[Hannah Bell]

14. Just noticed that the super says this is the first time the district ever went through the process.

Sort of negates the implication that this is the norm & it's killing the districts.

"We had never gone through this process. We didn't know how long this would be," said Superintendent Steve Short, whose district operates on a $32million annual budget.

"I can tell you that this was an unusual case," said David Millstone, a Cleveland lawyer with Squire Sanders and Dempsey, the law firm representing the school district. He blamed the length of the case on the fact that Freshwater's attorney would spend a day or two cross-examining witnesses that Millstone had questioned for 30 minutes to an hour.

also it looks like freshwater (or his backers) paid for his case, not the union:

The case cost Freshwater, too. Although he wouldn't speak about it this week, he and his wife, Nancy, wrote last month: "We have already spent our life savings and have pledged our farm to get to the truth. It is better to leave the money on the table than to take the Bible off of my desk."

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Yeah, but isn't $900,000 about 14 bucks in creationism dollars?

I mean, if 4,700,000,000 = 6,000.