Illinois educators this week introduced major reform legislation that will hold school administrators, school board members and teachers accountable for their performances on behalf of school children statewide.
Three unions representing more than 230,000 Illinois education employees, the Illinois Education Association (IEA), the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) and the Chicago Teachers Union are proposing the legislative package Accountability for All.
Accountability for All would streamline the process for removing underperforming teachers from Illinois classrooms. The changes would ensure a proposed teacher dismissal is resolved in a much shorter time, helping to reduce costs associated with dismissals for both districts and employees.
“We believe these reforms are fair and rigorous standards that will make a difference in children’s education. This legislation provides accountability and support for all of the adults involved with our schools. Teachers will also continue to have the right to advocate for their students without fear of reprisal,” said Dan Montgomery, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers.
“Every student has the right to be taught by a top-quality teacher. Teachers who have received support but who are unable to do the job, will have to leave the classroom,” said Ken Swanson, IEA president, “Accountability for All proposes reforms that will improve teaching and learning that come from teachers, the classroom experts.”
“How do you improve schools? Lower class sizes, limit instructional time spent on standardized testing, fund schools based on need, not clout, and be sure that all children receive a full diet of art, music, physical education and foreign languages,” said Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and executive vice president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers.
The unions also propose that teacher performance evaluations be clearly tied to a teacher obtaining due process rights, usually known as “teacher tenure.” Educators are calling for performance evaluations to help determine which teachers will be laid off during a financial crisis in a district. Currently, layoff decisions are made based solely on seniority.
Another provision of Accountability for All would provide for the expansion of training and mentoring programs for teachers and school administrators. In addition, under the union plan all school board members in Illinois would, for the first time, be required to participate in training aimed at improving their performances as board members. And the package also contains a “Student Bill of Rights” that would hold districts accountable for providing every student with a qualified teacher on day one of each school year.
The Accountability for All legislation builds on previous education improvement initiatives in which IEA and IFT have been key players, including the state’s application for Race to the Top funds.
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Illinois Education Association is an association of more than 130,000 members composed of Illinois elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty and staff, educational support professionals, retired educators and college students preparing to become teachers.
If this becomes law, no teacher will ever reach retirement again. To make it to the new retirement age of 67 without having a “better” and LESS EXPENSIVE teacher undercutting your position will be very rare…………. or Is that the ides?
The idea of teacher unions is not to protect bad teachers, but to protect teachers from bad administrators.
All administrators are not bad, but all administrators have learned to play the political game, hence they all think as those above them do. If you base performance on what the administration views as a standard you’ll lose all of the teachers who are creative who inspire their students.
Teaching to a BLAND STANDARD. Let’s destroy creativity! Let’s destroy science and math by making it the most boring subjects on earth.
Free thought and FREEDOM are over rated.
Politicians see education as an easy mark we can’t afford to let the uneducated politician regulated those who know how to educate.
Wait a minute….. am I reading this correctly???? “Educators are calling for performance evaluations to help determine which teachers will be laid off during a financial crisis in a district.” Why would the IEA agree to giving up seniority!? What protection do older teachers, with higher salaries have? What if younger, cheaper teachers have “distinguished” evals and older, more expensive teachers have “excellent” evals? You could think all along that you’re safe, but with budget cuts, older teachers are at great risk! Many of us gave up other professions to go into teaching – it’s not fair to take away one of our few benefits! Good luck finding new teachers to come into the profession! Good luck finding dues paying members! What happened to recognizing that great teaching comes with maturity and experience!? WHAT IS THE IEA DOING? Has the IEA forgotten what it’s like to be in the classroom!? Is the IEA reading the research!? If you’re giving away my seniority, then let me direct deal my own salary!
IEA, IFT and CTU have not proposed giving up seniority as a factor in determining layoffs. It is proposed that performance evaluations which occur after the new performance evaluation goes into effect (not until at least 2015 in some districts and 2016 in the remaining districts) would be a factor considered in determining layoffs, along with seniority and other factors. Performance evaluations would not be given any greater weight than seniority in making these determinations. It would be up to the district and the union to jointly determine how teachers would be grouped by evaluations, i.e., into 4 separate groups established under the new evaluations law (excellent, proficient, needs improvement or unsatisfactory) or 3 separate groups (excellent/proficient, needs improvement, unsatisfactory), and how much weight to give each factor. Furthermore, the union proposal specifically states that teachers’ salaries and benefits are prohibited from being a factor considered.
I would like to know upon what criteria will a teacher’s dismissal be based? I think we are all aware that test scores alone are no basis for dismissal – demographics being as dynamic as they are currently, and are what truly drive the curriculum. Additionally, by restricting a teacher’s right to adapt the curriculum to accommodate students’ individual needs and learning styles, we will still be guilty of placing the onus of responsibility upon the teacher, without allowing the teacher to teach, and without any accountability on the part of the administrators – those who mandate the curriculum, and how it is to be taught.
I hope this part of the proposal doesn’t turn out to be a slippery slope:
“Educators are calling for performance evaluations to help determine which teachers will be laid off during a financial crisis in a district. Currently, layoff decisions are made based solely on seniority.”
I can see the possibility of administration manipulating this in order to dump veteran educators who have the highest salaries. I think this whole thing hinges on how the performance evaluations are developed and implemented. If we agree to this before knowing how performance will be evaluated, we could be in trouble down the road.