Students Speak Out: Minnesota
Fresh Start
Have you heard of "fresh Start"? A student wrote an article about it happening in her school. Check it out. What happened was the school's test scores were not up to par, so ALL of the teachers got fired and then had to reapply for their jobs.
According to this student, it is not working out very well at all. Has anything like this occurred in your school? Does it seem like something that might work? Do you think your school should consider doing something like this?
According to this student, it is not working out very well at all. Has anything like this occurred in your school? Does it seem like something that might work? Do you think your school should consider doing something like this?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by george mayer on -
Chavonne, that's a great point and it never even occurred to me: letters of recommendation. This idea seems to gets worse and worse the more we talk about it. But to be honest, a letter of recommendation is not going to get a 13 on an ACT into very many strong schools. There must be a way to improve teachers instead of getting read of them, right?
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Permalink Reply by Brett on -
Hey guys, long time no talk! Sorry about that.
At Avalon we evaluate our advisors at least twice a year, the school as a whole, and the seminars. Usually this is through an anonymous survey or questionnaire of some sort. My school is also a teacher cooperative, where the advisors are on an equal playing field, so no one has more authority regardless of years or position within the school. It can pose a problem when there is obviously an advisor who needs to be released, or worked with on a touchy issue.
If there was to be a "fresh start" at Avalon (which would never happen) I do not think the school would be as successful. We use a mentorship program and our community a lot when anyone new is introduced to the school because it takes a long time and a lot of effort to get acquainted with the system. At a traditional school, I envision similar affects would occur. You can't remove all the staff (and experience) with a school and its system, and hope that the returning student body will benefit.
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Permalink Reply by Nora on -
Brett's comment made me think of the idea of tenure. It's a little off topiec but it does involve getting rid of teachers: my experience has been that there are a lot of tenured teachers that are clearly not performing very well but because they have tenure, it is very difficult to get rid of them. I get that teachers get moved around a lot and it can be a rather insecure job and that tenure basically gaurantees them a job within the district they have been teaching in, but a lot of times it seems that the better teachers are layed off because they have less experience while the more experienced teachers who sometimes not only appear to dislike their job, but kids in general get to stick around. Is there a better way to give teachers some kind of security blanket while still being able to weed out the bad ones?
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Permalink Reply by Brett on
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I know we had a discussion somewhere about tenure, and a lot of people had negative things to say towards it. What other job does one have such guaranteed security just because he or she has been around "X" many years? I can not think of a situation where a program like tenure in service jobs is a good approach for those the jobs serve.
If I remember correctly, we also debated the appropriate way to evaluate a teacher to give them their security, as another option. If we take test scores, can we also do parent evaluations? If we use test scores, are student improvements important, or just making the standards? Both . . . ? If someone can find the link to that page, it could help us out. I don't remember where it is.
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Permalink Reply by Nora on
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If tenure was eliminated do you think it would overall have a positive or negative impact on schools?
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