BLP: Will teachers in Pennsylvania finally be held accountable for their poorly performing classrooms?
Pennsylvania State Rep. Aaron Bernstine just introduced an amendment to House Bill 1540, which aimed to amend the act of March 10, 1949 (P.L.30, No.14), better known as the Public School Code of 1949.
Bernstine’s amendment would mandate all staff in a given school district to live within the school district they work for.
Bernstine went public about his support for this legislation. He was quoted as saying:
Many teachers refuse to live in the poor performing school districts where they work. They do this while their union membership dues are used to keep students trapped in these horrendous schools that they say will be “fixed” with increased funding. PSEA members earn more than three times that of an average Pennsylvanian per work day. Ensuring that PSEA members live in the school district that they teach will increase the tax base and ultimately achieve their goal of increased funding.
And their kids have to attend the same school, mandatory also.
If this is a stick to encourage vouchers and school choice, sure. But once they do the vouchers/school choice thing there should be no need or reason to compel teachers to live where their schools are.
Also, nobody would move. Staffing would change if this were forced, but no teacher is going to change homes because their employer told them to.
Neat idea. All this will do is cause teaching position vacancies in shit districts. Maybe that’s the point, Idk?
Reminds me of the asinine rule they had in Texas that actually closed underperforming schools – like it was the building itself that caused poor results. To make it more insane, they transferred the teachers from the closed building to other schools! Why would anyone put their child in a system that is that f**ed up?
My ideas for “fixing” troubled schools.
1. Identify the mission correctly. Schools are there to provide an opportunity for an education; they do not and cannot guarantee an education.
2. Separate the trouble makers from the general education students. If districts have to build a separate facility for disruptive, violent or disinterested students, then so be it – it would benefit students who want to learn.
3. Allow middle and high school students to flunk out. Again, the mission is to provide an opportunity – not a guarantee. This may sound harsh, but not every child is interested in academics, and one can have a worthwhile career without having to learn physics or calculus.
4. If the unions object (and they will), then guarantee vouchers so involved parents can send their children to better schools. The purpose of a school is to provide a place where students have an opportunity to learn; many teachers tell me an inordinate amount of time and effort is spent on a minority of disruptive students. If the disruptive students cannot be removed, then decent students should be given the opportunity to leave.
Yeah, make THEIR children attend public skrool, a lot of teachers send their kids to private schools.