TEACHING – THE ONLY PROFESSION WHERE BEING AVERAGE ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH
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A Los Angeles Superior Court judge recently ruled that tenure, seniority and other job protections for teachers have created unequal conditions in public schools and deprive poor children of the best teachers. The ruling seemed to indicate that poor and minority students are more likely than affluent white students to be taught by “grossly ineffective” teachers.
Sorry, judge, you’re wrong. Poor and minority students are more likely than affluent white students to be taught by AVERAGE teachers.
In any profession in America, the majority of people in the profession are AVERAGE at what they do. It’s a law of mathematics, if nothing else. The majority of doctors, lawyers, dentists, plumbers and other workers are average at what they do. The above average people in any profession will always be found in the most prestigious, and most rewarding locations. If the president needs heart surgery, who’s going to perform it, the surgeon from an obscure rural clinic ? Get the idea ? It’s how a capitalist country like America works.
If this judge and others want the best teachers to be in our poorest schools, then we’ve got to radically alter how things are done in this country. Ten percent of teachers are probably incompetent, just like ten percent of workers are incompetent in any given profession. Are more incompetent teachers located in our poorest schools? Probably, but that small incompetent group isn’t why our poor and minority students tend to have lower test scores.
It’s extremely naive and unfair to assume a large number ofTEACHING – THE ONLY PROFESSION WHERE BEING AVERAGE ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH | Teachers Fight Back: