140 direct placements is still 140 too many
Thursday, April 17, 2008Written by: Van Schoales
So I wonder what DPS and DCTA is going to do with all 140 of their direct placement teachers? Direct placement teachers are those tenured and certified teachers that no principal or school hiring committee wants working in their building.
Should “direct placement teachers” wear a scarlet letter if they can’t find a job? Or maybe they should be sent to some lovely space at
DPS should be applauded for reducing the number of direct placements from 250 to 140 but it seems ridiculous to have any of these teachers being responsible for students if no principals see them as worthy of filling an opening in their schools. Not only is this a huge problem for any of the kids being taught by these teachers but it is also a huge expense….somewhere around $10,000,000 year!
April 17th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Van, I agree. Reducing the number of direct placement teachers to 140 is not a cause for celebration. The practice needs to be eliminated altogether! What can be done to rework the state’s tenure (aka Teacher Employment Compensation and Dismissal) law? I know the issue is a big hobby horse for some on the Right, but just because they may expect too much from a change in tenure laws doesn’t mean it’s not a good step to take.
Thoughts, anyone?
April 18th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Obviously zero direct placements would be better than 140. And 140 is not trivial - that means, on average, about 1 per DPS school (though we also know they won’t be dispersed equally across schools).
Like lots of things about our present school system, direct placements are not a positive feature, but they are a reality in most urban districts. So, reducing them from 250 to 140 in one year actually is a nice improvement, and DPS deserves support for that, even as we urge them to get it closer to zero next year.
And, 140 out of 4,500 teachers does provide a sense of the scale of the problem. While this practice is nearly impossible to defend, it alone isn’t the overwhelming cause of problems in our urban schools.
April 20th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Question: If the District went from 250 to 140, does this mean 110 teachers no longer teach in the district? Or were they just not in this year’s class of direct placements? Is there any evidence that DPS has actually whittled some of the non-productive teachers out, or did they just find another way to reduce the number?