What Gets My Goat
When I read articles like this one, “despair” is too weak of a word to describe how I feel about the teaching “profession”. Granted, I work in a school context vastly different from NYC, but I still hold the same title as the people described in this article.
The sentence that stopped me in my tracks:
…Mohammed’s case [a tenured teacher in NYC charged by her administration as professionally incompetent] will probably have cost the city and the state (which pays the arbitrator) about four hundred thousand dollars.
Nor is it by any means certain that, as a result of that investment, New York taxpayers will have to stop paying Mohammed’s salary, eighty-five thousand dollars a year.
There’s a part of me that just wants out out out of teaching when I read about this.
Frustrations, Institutions
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anger, despair, good article, new yorker, professionalism, quixotic, tenure
Themocracy
Interesting piece. About two years ago I ran into this ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/education/10education.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1 ) bit in the NYT and had a similar reaction of “despair”, but more for those quarantined without formal charges. The ratio cited helps put it in perspective: an average of 760 teachers out of roughly 80,000 are in the Rubber Room at any given time. All things considered, that’s not too shabby. Less than 1%. I would put those numbers up against most other professions…Catholic priests included. And if you got out out out of the teaching profession Mr. Pierce, that ratio would edge a wee bit little bit closer to 1%.
Don’t worry, Rob. I just like to have a nice whinge-session every now and then. I’ll be around a bit longer I think.