Why do teachers need "protection?" What are they being protected from? Everyone has to answer to someone. And why the implicit assumption that no one but teachers needs this "protection?" What about protecting students from bad teachers? Your statement implies that the desires of teachers have to come first, always, and that administrators are incompetent and out to get teachers, always.
Why do teachers even need tenure? They aren't doing original research (see
my earlier post).
Why are teachers so special that they can't be fired or can only be fired after a Herculean effort?
Your reasons for not being able to evaluate public school teachers don't hold water. Parents aren't the only people who can evaluate teachers and private school parents aren't the only people who get involved with schools. Schools around the world manage to evaluate teachers. Why is this problem unique to American public schools?
Teachers should have to hold degrees in the areas they teach, and they should be required to pass rigorous tests proving that they know their subject matter.
There are
new programs that will require prospective teachers to submit lesson plans and videos of themselves teaching. This information will be assessed by disinterested parties, and will be required for licensing. Yet many teachers are vehemently opposed to these systems, basically claiming that "we can evaluate ourselves, thank you very much." The example I've cited is only one of many showing resistance to assessment.
Everyone else in the world, literally, has to be assessed at work. Yet US K-12 public school teachers resist the idea. This entitlement attitude is, I believe, a large part of our education problem. People who want to teach should have to prove --- every year --- that they 1) know the subject matter they teach and 2) can actually impart that information to students on a schedule.
