Teachers' unions are not to blame

[vssmith]

I taught in Michigan for over 30 years and I have seen a number of what I would call unsatisfactory teachers. Why are they allowed to continue in the profession? In Michigan a teacher gets tenure after three years and then it becomes more difficult to fire them. Principals have 3 years in which to weed them out but that rarely happens. They would do everyone a favor it they got these people out of education so they can get on with something for they are more suited. Is that the unions fault? Obviously not.

Another fault I would lay at the feet of the administration is hiring teachers because there is a need for coaches. Happens all the time.

I served on a school board for a couple of terms. The high school principal was always complaining about a particular teacher and in the end he only allowed her to supervise study halls. We got a new Superintendent and I told him that if he could get rid of this teacher, as far as I was concerned, he would have earned his first years salary. He found a way but the teacher ended up coming before the board with union representation, which was her right. The union rep handed out the evaluations that she had gotten over the years and all of them, without exception, were either average or above average. Again the pricipal had taken the easy way out.