Today, Obama admin all but admitted it is a right wing, teacher-union busting admin

[mdohoney]

158. Are All classrooms equal?

The foundation of this question is central to teacher tenure.

In California Beginning teachers can be fired without cause for the first two years with tenure granted in the beginning of the third contract year.

This points to the problem that if administration has not done an adequate job of evaluation of these beginning teachers who cannot cut it, then administration is at fault here they have two years to make that determination.

In every classroom there is a percentage of students who really do not want to be there and disturb the educational process by misbehavior. Generally, there are two maybe three of these students in a classroom. If the administration has done their job in assigning class lists for the coming year this factor will be spread evenly among the several classes. However, sometimes administration fails and allows a larger number of shall we call them troubled kids in a classroom. This can doom even an excellent teacher to a bad year. Test scores will drop and the teacher will look like they cannot do the job.

In my experience, having spent 30 years in the classroom, I was in a school that had two teachers in each grade level my colleague teaching the other class at my grade level was retiring so administrator gave me all the troubled kids at that grade level. She had a blissful year whereas my year was difficult.

So classrooms are indeed not equal. Yes, Administrators are not angels and can punish teachers they don't like and reward their favorites by manipulating class lists. It is done more frequently than we like to believe. The person who draws up the class lists can determine whether a teacher looks good or bad. This is definitely a place where teacher accountability can be manipulated.