I had never been brought on the carpet, or anything. I realize that when this decision making process was taking place I was called out by my Assistant Principal becuase our Principal said the substitute in our class (and she was another asst principal niece and the schools bookkeeper daughter) said I was observing her.

Well I feel totaly guilty and react by working even more perfectly and letting my admin know I had my ID on and introduced who I was. I even went so far as to act a student if my behavior had been out of line that day – he said no = she just didn’t know who you were. I am a special ed collaborative teacher so with the lead teacher out and me knowing the lesson plan..instead of having them do worksheets as the other classes did – we worked on a real assignment. This was of course fine with the teacher. She had just had a son get sick and didn’t have a back up plan so they were doing worksheets with the sub.

What makes my story worse (or better depending on how you wish to look at it) is my assistant superintendent and dept head signed off on all my work which was required and is a great TEacher work sample per title II schools. My supervisor refused to come to my evaluation by the asst super and basically ignored my entire design.

Now I have to decide to use it or not.
#1 I am a great teacher and my students are all passing all content and elective courses (they do it all – but I am beat )
#2 I have resigned afther our little meeting and would really like to get out of the school.
#3 My work ethics are great. I will listen to my evaluation with respect – but I really don’t want to sign it if it is inaccurate. If they say “she came in 4 minutes late everyday) I would fight it down to 1 day – because that is accurate. But also whenever I was late, my classes were never affected.

There needs to be more market freedoms in education, both within and without the public system. Constructive competition – where parents and students can pick and choose according to their own criteria, and find something that suits them, and reject what they see as bad.

Schooling as it exists right now is a creaking anachronism of barbaric traditions glued together by “progressive” reforms. Its origin was in the early 19th century and its basis is intentional but unconscious sadism from the child-rearing practices of that time. Stamp the teachers into obedience, and let them stamp the kids into obedience.

Indigo Warrior, that’s a good assessment of the problem. I trust myself to do right and only take action against the really bad teachers and I, of course, think I’m fair and objective in making such judgments. I don’t have the same faith in everyone else.

Over the years I’ve had a few complaints made against me — by colleagues and school office staff and once by a guest from the Sierra Club. My critics were not always accurate (in my opinion) and were, I think, prone to exaggerations.

Perhaps a more profound problem with weeding out the bad teachers is that wherever there is a teacher shortage — as there is in South LA where I teach — administrators aren’t going to be anxious to terminate anyone for any reason.

Anyone have any ideas?

So as far as I can tell, the school administration just waited for him to retire – for thirty years! Meanwhile, the three best teachers I had in three years at that Jr High were all gone 5 years later – one retired, one become the headmaster of an expensive private school, and one burned out and quit teaching entirely after just two or three years.

Unfortunately, I was never in a position to “remove” teachers, most notably my own. I am not a parent either, so I don’t have kids to look out for. Some of my relatives are/were teachers, and can relate to stories such as these.

Do you have a state level professional standards organization that you can report people to or is it just a school by school thing?