Whistle-blowing for Teachers = Wrecked Careers

In this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, teachers are really up against overwhelming pressures by principals and higher administrators to cheat on standardized tests. Those teachers who are ethical risk losing everything if they talk:

In Atlanta, as in other Georgia school districts, teachers have little job security. Even those with tenure work under year-to-year contracts, and they have no collective bargaining rights. Younger teachers, in particular, say that if they run afoul of administrators, they risk being “non-renewed.”

Teachers also can be kept in line with the threat of being placed on a “professional development plan,” a form of probation that may lead to firing. At one Atlanta school, according to public records, the principal told her faculty that if test scores didn’t increase, she would be placed on a professional development plan — and if she was, each of them would be, too. Teachers in at least two other schools have complained of similar threats.

Georgia law, including a statute preventing punishment of certain whistle-blowers, offers no special protection for teachers who report wrongdoing, said Gary Walker, deputy executive secretary for the Professional Standards Commission, the state agency that licenses and disciplines teachers.

Walker said he tells potential whistle-blowers: “If they retaliate, we can’t promise we can take care of it for you.”

Teachers are absolutely shit out of luck. This is a national problem, not just a Georgia problem.