Sixth in a series
Re “Exorbitant Cost to District for Dumping a Bad Teacher”
[img]1912|right|Scott Zeidman||no_popup[/img]Having declared his position that the California’s probationary period for teacher tenure should be doubled, former School Board member Scott Zeidman turned to the equally controversial policy of last-in, first-out.
“That is a horrible notion,” he said. “But again, I have to play by the rules that are given to me. If the collective bargaining rules are such that it is seniority-based, and because teaching is so challenging, I am not sure how you can rank teachers.”
Wherever he looked, Mr. Zeidman espied red flags as he hunted for a panacea to a problem that is wracking teachers and their supervisors across the nation this summer.
“I can’t rank teachers by test scores,” he said. “If we do that, teachers will only teach to the tests so they get a higher ranking so they keep their jobs.
“And our students would suffer.
“I agree with (Teachers Union President) Dave Mielke that it is very difficult to rank teachers,” Mr. Zeidman said.
“And I can’t rank them on how students fare on future tests because, again, everything is based on tests, which gives teachers motivation only to teach to the test. We don’t want to do that.
“We want to challenge the kids. We want the kids to learn.
“So I don’t know how you would rank the teachers,” said the lawyer/entrepreneur. “I would hate to have the principal put up a listing, No. 1 through whatever. Too personal, and I don’t want that.”
Making a U-turn toward his opening assertion, Mr. Zeidman said he disagrees with the last-in, first-out policy because “quite often new teachers may be fantastic. They are energetic and the may be bringing in new concepts.”
The pickle becomes more perplexing.”
(To be continued)
