Almost Impossible to Fire Bad New York Teachers

New York Times:  “in the two years since the Education Department began an intensive effort to root out such teachers from the more than 55,000 who have tenure, officials have managed to fire only three for incompetence. . . . . The city’s effort includes eight full-time lawyers, known as the Teacher Performance Unit, and eight retired principals and administrators who serve as part-time consultants to help principals build cases against teachers.”  Joel I. Klein is the chancellor of the New York City schools.  He said this about how difficult it is to remove teachers.

“The process makes it virtually impossible to remove a teacher within a reasonable amount of time,” Mr. Klein said in an interview. “Nobody thinks that the number of cases is reflective of the teachers who should be removed.”

See John Stossel’s “Impossible-to-fire Teachers” and “How to Fire an Incompetent Teacher:  An illustrated guide to New York’s public school bureaucracy.”  If you’ve gotten this far, you have to see the illustrated “epic spelunk through the New York school system.”  See also LA Weekly’s “LAUSD’s Dance of the Lemons.”