OUR OPINION: Make sure teachers’ grades matter
December 26, 2012 at 5:26 pm in Grand Forks Herald
Congratulations to the Grand Forks School District for setting up a stronger evaluation system for teachers. Now, the challenge for the district will be to make sure the evaluations count. Continue Reading
As long as unions are in control, teacher’s grades will be irrelevant. In a union, seniority, not competence is the key. I refer everyone to the numerous discussions of this topic on the ACS boards.
For teacher’s grades to matter, there has to be an incentive. Teacher’s that earn an A get a larger raise than those that got a C. Teachers who habitually score higher than their compatriots get plum assignments and special recognition.
These tried and true business practices are at present prohibited by contract. Without them any form of grading scale is simply paperwork and has no meaning.
You will not change this without codifying it in the next contract, and I doubt seriously the NDEA will cooperate.
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Since ND is a right to work state, does one HAVE to belong to the NDEA? I have no clue.
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The dirty little secret of right to work states is they can be abrogated by contract. Think ACS. It was a closed shop. That was and is the whole point behind the lockout. New classifications of employees could have been non union.
I do not know if public school teachers are required to join. That is a great question. I do know that in other states one of the big pushes for charter schools was/is they were allowed to circumvent the union shop rules in hiring & advancement.
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Flying, you are not correct. Membership in a union in North Dakota is voluntary, including the NDEA and ACSC. In North Dakota a union contract can’t force employees to be members. At ACSC everyone was locked out, both union and non-union, but only union members could vote on the “union” contract. Non-union members could vote by simply going back to work. In North Dakota there are a fair number of teachers who do not join the NDEA, not a lot, but some. In Minnesota your comments would be correct, but not in North Dakota.
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