Do not think about, write about or deal with human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.
If it ain’t life or death or if it ain’t meat and potatoes, it don’t get done.
Only 18 useless teachers axed in 40 years
05/07/2010 12:00:00 EducationNews.org
“Only 18 teachers have been struck off for incompetence in the past 40 years, with heads simply palming under-performing staff on to other schools.
The paltry number sits uncomfortably beside previous estimates that up to 17,000 failing teachers are working in schools.
Thirteen teachers in England have been struck off for gross professional incompetence, three in Wales and two in Scotland. None has gone in Northern Ireland.
A BBC Panorama investigation found heads are often too fearful to report incompetent staff because it could damage their school’s reputation.
Instead, they offer good references in exchange for them looking for work in other state schools. It has led to a ‘pass-the-parcel’ system where bad teachers are simply ‘ recycled’.
But as few as 300 every year go through such a review - just 0.07 per cent of all teachers.
……
“Mr Woodhead says an incompetent teacher is someone who cannot control a class, has a lack of understanding of their subjects or dislikes children.”
……
“Experts warned that the difference between a child being taught by a bad teacher or by one who is simply average could be the difference between getting to university or into a job or ending up on the dole.”
This is just part of the hysterical rhetoric of those who hold that education solves all problems and lack of it causes all problems.
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies
