Education

Firings Happen

By Anthony Rebora — June 23, 2009 1 min read
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D.C. teacher Mr. Potter reports that several teachers at his school recently received termination notices (as part of an apparent year-end district purge). While he says he questions some of the decisions, he suggests that teachers in general are too quick to proclaim rank injustice and civic tragedy at the news of teacher firings:

Sometimes people get fired. Sometimes, your boss doesn't think you're doing a good job, and so you lose it. Sometimes this happens. Usually, the person deserves it. Sometimes, he/she maybe doesn't deserve to be fired, but still wasn't performing very well. Rarely is the person doing a really great job. Now, if someone is fired who really is doing their job well, and was fired for political or arbitrary reasons, then I'm glad we have a union to fight it. But honestly, if the person in question just wasn't performing well -- was showing up late and giving the kids busy work and not properly managing the class -- then I guess I don't feel that bad. They should have been using all that free time to update their resumees. Heartless? Maybe. But we don't have an absolute right to a job.

Is he right? What’s your experience?

A version of this news article first appeared in the Blogboard blog.