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Comment by v0cab | Hacker News Reader

From the nytimes article:

"But to union officials, the right to an impartial hearing is sacrosanct, to protect teachers from losing their livelihoods because a principal or a student might have an ax to grind."

An impartial hearing -- sounds good to me.

We don't know that all the teachers in that article did those things you said. You're implying that we should fire them and make them leave that career, just because a kid and his friends said they did? Kids can lie, you know.

[EDIT: After reading further in that article, I see some of the teachers did misbehave, but they were punished for it.]

Without unions, teachers can look forwards to as much protection and fairness in the workplace as your average US restaurant server. Get on the wrong side of your boss or his son? Fired. Too many complaints from customers about you in one week? Fired. No proof required.

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While putting teachers in the same boat as waiters, programmers and CEOs does sound awful, I think children will still wind up being educated.

Remember, the goal here is not to ensure teachers are never incorrectly fired, it's to educate children. If a few teachers are incorrectly fired, but student performance goes up, that's a win.

This is what happens in many industries. For example, if a trader or hedge fund manager gets unlucky and the market moves against him, he can be fired. Unfair individually, maybe, but in aggregate the net result is that the traders who aren't fired tend to perform better.

CEOs? Bad example there.

I am very concerned about labour rights, as that will be very important in a world of ever-fewer jobs with more competition for those jobs, for the students when they grow up, and for now, when their parents need jobs to support their family.

If students can get teachers fired with just an accusation,

* The students will end up with a fragmented education from a chain of supply teachers and replacements.

* Teachers will have to pander to students even more than they already do, for fear that a disgruntled student will decide to cry wolf. Lessons will focus on fun, not education, and teachers will be unable to stop students from disrupting class.

The comparison to a trader or hedge fund manager doesn't stand, as the market cannot decide to deliberately move against him out of spite, a need for power, or boredom.

[EDIT: Forgot to mention that private companies are more motivated to care about the product. Public school administrators would be more concerned about 'liability' and eliminating a source of 'hassle', than with the quality of the product. There's little incentive for them to work to keep a good teacher who's been unfairly accused.

The comparison to programmers is also not appropriate, for those same reasons.]

I think you are unfairly describing the situation. My friend is a teacher who readily admits it would take them about two years to get fired. Two years of essentially not doing their job.

The teachers in Atlanta that were taking their students tests for them may not even end up being fired. We aren't talking about teachers not being able to be fired on a whim. We are talking about bad teachers with a history not being able to be fired.

The comparison to a trader or hedge fund manager doesn't stand, as the market cannot decide to deliberately move against him out of spite, a need for power, or boredom.

Others in the company can and often do. You seem unfamiliar with corporate politics.

Public school administrators would be more concerned about 'liability' and eliminating a source of 'hassle', than with the quality of the product.

This is why I favor holding them responsible for outcomes as well, and allowing them to be fired if things don't turn out well.

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