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Fire Bad Teachers!

Ask any politician what is wrong with education and how to fix it. You might be impressed with their history lesson on education reform or their self serving speech about what they have done for "the children," but the one thing you won't hear is a substantive answer to your question.

Last week the Lawrence Teachers Union picketed a School Committee meeting saying they are treated unfairly and get little support from the administration. They held signs saying that classrooms are overcrowded and violent, all of which are probably true. But their solution to the education problem is as devoid of reality as the candidates for governor and our local politicians. They want more money and a better contract with better terms as if this is going to solve the problems of overcrowding and violence in the classrooms. Well, it won't and they know it.

No matter who you ask, everyone has a different theory about what is wrong with the educational system depending on his or her stake in the process.

Shannon O'Brien and Tom Birmingham (both candidates for governor) say that they don't know what the solution is to the education mess, but both want to continue throwing money into a system they admit is not working.

Last month Republican candidate Mitt Romney was asked by Rumbo editor Dalia Diaz what could be done about education and teachers who are not adequately performing in the classroom. His answer was to give teachers better training and providing more education for bad teachers to make them more effective. As a supporter of Mitt Romney, I winced when I heard the tape. Here was an opportunity for him to step up to the plate and address an issue no Democrat would dare to approach; the role of teachers unions.

Teachers unions in Massachusetts not only represents teachers in contract negotiations, they are a political machine which raises money for liberal Democrat candidates to promote legislation that makes their lives easier while holding them less accountable. When the issue of teacher testing and accountability is brought up at any level of government, the unions go into overdrive attacking those who suggest such an idea as "not caring about the children."

They promote the idea that smaller class sizes equal better education for children. But the only thing smaller class sizes accomplish is increasing the membership of teachers unions and increasing the amount of money paid in union fees. In the 50's and 60's class sizes at Lawrence High were almost double what they are today, and there is no disputing that the level of education those children received was far superior.

As Romney, O'Brien, Birmingham and the rest of the politicians pretend they have an answer for the education problem, not one of them dares to say what really needs to be done. In fact, the only one who could get away with shedding light on the answer is Mitt Romney, and he took a pass when given the opportunity.

How do you make education better? What do you do with teachers who are not producing? YOU FIRE THEM! You don't keep them in the classroom for five years while they go back to school for more training on how to be a better teacher. This may give the teacher a chance to sharpen their skills but it doesn't do much for the children still sitting in their classroom until they get their act together. Our focus should not be on the rights of public school employees to have a job, it should be the rights of children to have a quality education.

We shouldn't have to haggle with unions and cumbersome procedures to bad teachers out of the classroom. We shouldn't have to play the political shell game of moving them to administrative jobs (that pay higher salaries) so that they are not negatively effecting kids in the classroom. You fire them as any businessman would fire an employee who was not pulling his weight.

To do that however, we have to take away political power and control from unions who defend bad teachers and fight to keep them in the classroom. We have to hold them accountable for what goes on in their classroom. Union officials are the single biggest reason why bad teachers continue to negatively influence your children and the number one source of mediocrity in the schools. They stifle creative teachers by negotiating a pay structure that is built on time served instead of excellence and performance.

Two teachers with the same education and experience get the same pay and the same benefits despite how good or bad they are. While one teacher reads the newspaper, the other takes a personal interest in the advancement of her students but both earn the same amount of money. That doesn't promote an environment of solution based learning it promotes stagnation where the longer you teach the less you have to perform.

We can talk about bilingual education for minority students, social problems at home, or any other excuse for why the public school system fails millions of kids every day. But the real solution starts with ending the political influence that rewards mediocrity and discourages excellence. Sure there are some great teachers in every school system. Many of our public school teachers truly care about the lives of the children they touch every day. But caring isn't enough, accountability is.

The Democratic Party structure in Massachusetts is so incestuous that it would be impossible for any candidate in that party to even try to address this issue. They raise millions and provide armies of campaign workers to ensure that teacher testing and measures of accountability never see the light of day. And since most school board members and mayors in Massachusetts belong to the democrat party and depend on their leadership at the local level to get elected, nothing will ever get done unless someone at the top says enough is enough.

Since Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates for state office owe no favors to these politically driven unions they have a real chance of shaping the debate on how to fix a dismal system that thrives on the status quo. It is up to them to bring public debate about teachers unions to the forefront of public opinion and shed the light of day on their anti education, anti children activity all the while whining that they are the ones who truly care about "the children."

So far, nobody has dared to take on the 10-ton monster sitting in the way of excellence. So far, nobody has had the courage to simply say a better educational system starts with the ability to fire bad teachers. But that is what needs to be said and that is what needs to be done. I only hope someone talks about it before November or it will be four more years of the fox ruling the hen house. And the children of Massachusetts cannot afford to have their future sold out by greedy and self-serving unions and politicians.