Education Wars

Philadelphia's public school system is already one of the worst in the United States and is rife with teacher abuse, but Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, an Eli Broad hack, promises there will be more purging of troublesome teachers and administrators and thus more problems.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said that "it isn't helpful for principals or administrators to be on a witch hunt" and that struggling teachers need more support from the district.

Jordan said he could not say whether more teachers should have been rated unsatisfactory last year.

Michael Lerner, president of the principals union, said his organization has "never advocated that people who are unable to do the job be maintained in the position."

But Lerner said he saw no problem with zero disciplinary actions against principals last year. "I would attribute to that to the excellent selection process the school district has in choosing its administrators," he said.

Ackerman probably needs to ditch some of the principals, but it will never be the shitty ones, only the ones who dare to make trouble in a good way.

Let the disciplinary hearings be public, and then we will see if Ackerman's claims have any merit. The secretiveness of these taxpayer-financed hearings (to the tune of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per case) helps create the scapegoating and abuse of teachers.
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It's all well and good to think you have all of the answers to problems with public schools, but if the problem of workplace abuse against teachers by administrators isn't addressed, nothing will change.

Get outstanding students to go into teaching and treat them like professionals, not blue-collar workers in dead-end jobs. That means putting teachers in charge of their schools.

Nobody in his or her right mind would go into this field. Ideally, public education should be about the kids, but unfortunately, it isn't. It's all about politics and seeing what an administrator can get away with.

Regarding workplace abuse, this would easily remedied if all disciplinary hearings and arbitration proceedings were open to the public. After all, taxpayer money is being used for these more-often-than-not fake tribunals, and people and the media should have total access to them. Believe me, administrators would think long and hard before targeting teachers for abuse and termination if these hearings were open to the public.