Evaluation-Inflation: It’s the Union Way

How can Teacher’s Unions hurt education? You’d be surprised. The Chicago Tribune Reports that only 0.3% of Teachers receive unsatisfactory evaluations. Is it because of world class teachers. Not exactly as Union Facts points out:

As the Chicago Tribune put it, between 2003 and 2006 “[o]nly three of every 1,000 teachers in the school system received an “unsatisfactory” rating.” Fifty-six percent of veteran Chicago principals admitted to TNTP that they inflated teacher ratings, but the reasons why (page 48) are striking:

• 30% said the teacher’s tenure would prevent dismissal regardless of the rating;
• 34% said it wasn’t worth enduring the lengthy union grievance proceedings;
• 51% said that the union contract makes it difficult to lower the rating of a teacher that has previously received high ratings;
• and 73% said that the performance evaluation doesn’t actually evaluate performance.

It gets worse. TNTP found that “between 2003 and 2006, only nine teachers received two or more “unsatisfactory” ratings and none was dismissed.” Deeper in the report, TNTP’s survey of 464 Chicago principals determined that a staggering 83% of bad teachers with tenure are “rarely or never terminated” (page 49). The union contract looms large in principals’ decisions not to pursue a bad tenured teacher’s termination, with 55% of principals agreeing that “[t]he documentation required [to pursue a termination] is too time-consuming” (the top reason) and 34% agreeing that “[t]he risk of a cumbersome grievance process is too great.”

The problem here is clear. Unions are more interested in preserving the jobs of their workers. In a factory, this can have limited damage that’s relevant to everyone. But what we’re dealing with here is a situation where kids enrolled in schools are getting the education they should do to teachers that should have been sent packing years ago.

For too long in Idaho, the IEA has been allowed to dominate politics through their donations. This isn’t to say teachers don’t have a place at the table, they do. But when Union politics becomes more important than educating our children, we’ve got to re-evaluate what we’re doing.