Relying on Half-Truths in Vergara P.R. Push
SEPTEMBER 15, 2014
Writing in The San Diego Union-Tribune this weekend, San Diego County Superintendent Randy Ward offered lots of rhetoric and insufficient evidence to explain the educational benefits leading to hissupport for the Vergara ruling. At various times over the years, I’ve formed a positive impression of Ward, and even enjoyed a brief chat with him at a California Teachers of the Year event. He has decades of experience as a respected administrator in multiple districts and counties around California. My earliest impression of him came from a panel discussion he did with John Merrow several years ago; when asked the extent to which he would hold unions responsible for certain problems in education, and Ward answered that every contract is signed by two sides, so you can’t hold just one side responsible.
This time around, I have to take issue with his assessment of the state’s current education policy drama. Regarding the Vergara decision, Ward offers plenty of basic observations about the challenges of educating children in high-poverty, high-needs schools, and the maldistribution of highly-qualified teachers among schools. Like the Vergara attorneys, he suggests, without evidence, that the most challenged schools would improve student learning if not for ed. code provisions relating teacher job protections – especially concerning seniority and dismissal proceedings; they want to remove bad teachers more easily, and target less effective teachers for layoffs when necessary. It sounds like I’m arguing against an idea with benefits that are self-evident, but there are some potentially flawed underlying assumptions:
- Loss of seniority protections won’t have a negative impact on school climate and staff collaboration.
- Schools are able to evaluate teachers accurately and effectively.
- The new teachers coming in will be better than those they replace.
- The ineffective teaching is mainly a result of flaws in the individual rather than in the school system.
Certainly, there are individuals who need to be dismissed. I tend to think that the much larger problem in our field is that over-stressed school systems create a lot of sub-optimal teaching, and unsatisfactory teachers.
Ward concedes that charter schools have the flexibility he wants the Vergara decision to create statewide – and yet don’t, as a sector, have better outcomes. Perhaps he could also have noted that many states are similarly challenged to show better educational outcomes, even though they also lack California’s due Relying on Half-Truths in Vergara P.R. Push | InterACT: