"zero tolerance" in schools
How come people successfully get all up in arms about ridiculous punishments for students in schools (month-long suspensions for having aspirin in a backpack, that sort of thing), when due process is denied for a teacher as in this story from The New Yorker piece on "rubber rooms"?
Steve Ostrin, who was assigned to a Brooklyn Rubber Room fifty- ( Read more... )
Steve Ostrin, who was assigned to a Brooklyn Rubber Room fifty- ( Read more... )
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I grew up in NYC and saw a number of examples of incompetent, tenured teachers. Some people went for the job because they knew if they just got through a few years, they'd be set for life pretty much no matter what. Who wouldn't want that kind of security? I remember one teacher (luckily I was not in her class, but I encountered her) who was consistently drunk and had friends tell me about her falling asleep in the middle of class. And I attended one of the best high schools in the city. Having no effective recourse is just insane. Tenure after three years is, imho, insane.
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In the end, though, I have less outrage on behalf of grownups who kind of lose their jobs, than on behalf of students who kind of lose their ability to go to school, because I believe much more strongly in the right to go to school than the right to be employed.
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b) We were teenagers when students.
c) All teenagers feel unjustifiably unjustly wronged.
d) We sympathize directly with the plight of unjustly wronged students.
Beyond that, I have an at-will job. If I'm accused in that way, I don't have any due-process protection; ultimately, someone will make a judgement call and one of us will be out the door. He doesn't have to admit wrongdoing; he can quit and go elsewhere. He wouldn't provide that principal as a reference anyway, so what's the loss?
He's been there for four years. He could have spend those teaching in Uzbekistan or Iowa and by now returned to Civilization with glowing recommendations.
Lastly: insisting that he was only joking around with the student and that the principal, who didn’t like him, seized upon the incident? That doesn't present an innocent man. That presents someone who made a student uncomfortable enough to report an incident, and who had already alienated his boss. It may not be guilt, but it's sure not innocence.
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The system *is* schizophrenic, though.
I wonder if four years is enough for the students in the system to have shown any improvement...
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Many teachers don't get the benefit of the rubber room at all, and have to leave, period.
Having a shadow cast upon you never goes away, even if you're cleared later on. People remember that YOU were the suspect, that there was something about YOU that made YOU suspicious.....even if you're cleared later, that's a burden that follows you.
In fact, the teacher did indeed get his "due process" but a school can decide not to hire someone based on almost anything (except race, nationality, gender, religion, etc). And the administration, *especially* of a private school, does have to consider things like "what would parents think if we took the risk and let [him] back into the classroom"?
Even though it says more of the student body than the teacher, that 2 people falsely accused him. Then again, maybe the 2nd accusation happened because of the first.
The rubber room at least sends the message to the teachers that the administration trusts them, even though the PTA doesn't.
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(I mean, if I were rude to a customer or made them uncomfortable in some way that was inappropriate but non-criminal, I would expect there to be consequences for my career even if there were no criminal charges or none that stuck. Perhaps the full article explains why this isn't even poor judgement on his part?)
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Usually there are two sides to every story. This New Yorker article, and the other things I've read, make it seem like such a one-sided argument. And I am loathe to come to that kind of conclusion lightly.
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