Tracy Truong

M. Williams

English 1A

7 October 2013

            Public schools in America are prone to have bad teachers. Teachers are given tenure after teaching for a certain amount of years. The agreement to grant teachers tenure is the reason why schools come by bad teachers so easily. In Waiting for Superman, there is an event called the “Lemon Dance” in which bad teachers (or bad “lemons”) are swapped with another school’s bad teachers in hopes that the school will end up with a teacher that is better than the one that they had before. This event is allowed to happen because teachers have tenure and cannot be fired from their jobs. By granting jobs to these corrupt teachers, schools are cheating students out of a quality education because people who do not care for educating students are being allowed to keep their jobs even if they do nothing to support the kids they are in charge of. Public schools are the most vulnerable to this because the school system is built in a way that prevents them from firing any teachers, good or bad.

            Public schools are more likely to face having bad teachers but poor schools will especially suffer. In Savage Inequalities Kozol talks about how “teachers are handpicked” in private schools (89). Since private schools require parents to pay for their children to be admitted in, they have a significantly larger amount of money to spend compared to public schools. With this money, private schools are allowed to pick from the best groups of teachers, contrasting with public schools, which are forced to take whoever is eligible to be a teacher. Since public schools do not generate as much revenue as private schools do, they cannot afford to pay better teachers more money, which brings up another big conflict. The better a teacher is, the more difficult it will be for a public school to hire them because they would be competing against the private schools. For example, if a teacher were offered a higher paying job at a private school compared to a low paying job in a public school, the teacher would most likely choose the private school because it offers the teacher more than what the public school can.

            Public schools that are poor and in bad areas usually receive the worst teachers of them all. When schools cannot afford quality teachers it is already a problem, but if it is in a dangerous neighborhood then it is even worse. In East St. Louis, “health officials warn of cholera” from the raw sewage that floods the city. There is a large list of diseases that children living in East St. Louis suffer from because their city is neglected. Their trash is not collected and they live next to chemical factories. Because of this, people who live outside of East St. Louis are afraid of going into the city. It is a risk to their health. It is also very dangerous in East St. Louis. Since the people in the city live in poverty, they are more likely to fall into drug addiction or alcoholism to try to ease their suffering. This along with the health risks make it very unappealing to people to work in such an area, thus making it even more difficult to attract quality teachers. If normal people are already afraid of entering East St. Louis, it will be even more difficult to convince a good teacher to stay and teach there because there are more cons presented to them than pros. A place like East St. Louis cannot offer a teacher a clean classroom or decent textbooks to use. This is why schools that are poor and in terrible areas are the most likely to receive bad teachers. Schools are unable to get the resources they need to properly educate young minds.

            Even though private schools manage to pick good teachers, the question of why bad teachers even exist still remains. One reason why bad teachers exist is because of the type of job they are offered. Since teachers get tenure after teaching a certain number of years, they are able to secure their jobs regardless of whether or not they are doing a good job in teaching their students. “Following the release of a 1985 report by the Illinois State Board of Education showing that only three tenured teachers were dismissed on average per year, the Illinois legislature changed their tenure laws to make it easier to dismiss underperforming teachers. In the 18 years following these changes, only 39 tenured teachers were dismissed.” (Kersten) Tenure allows teachers to keep their jobs even if they are not doing their jobs and educating the students in their classes. Seldom any teachers get fired, which helps adults keep their jobs but ruins the students who will later be in charge in the future.

            The structure of the school system is another reason for why bad teachers exist. The corrupt structure of the schools creates bad teachers. In Waiting for Superman, the narrator talks about how schools are in chaos because of the different rules and regulations they are held to. In one state, a failing score could be considered as passing in another. This confusing system is not unified and fails to focus on the main point, which is to educate students. Schools and teachers have forgotten that the most important goal for them to reach is to teach students accordingly and make sure that children learn what they need to in order to move society forward in life. The goal of teaching students has been lost in this system of restraining rules. When Michelle A. Rhee, the chancellor of the Washington D.C. public school system fired a large number of teachers, many protests rose. Teachers wanted to keep their jobs despite not performing well and failing to educate their students. The value of teaching children is lost when topics like money and jobs are put in the spotlight.

            The government and society play a heavy role in why there are bad teachers. Society dictates that people must have money and material things to be able to survive. Because this mindset is planted in most people in the world, money and other material things are a great influence on people and their behaviors. The need for money is what drives some teachers to teach, despite the fact that they may not even enjoy teaching. Society is not the only thing to be blamed, however. The government also plays a huge role in students and teachers’ lives. In Waiting for Superman, the topic of “No Child Left Behind” is brought up. “No Child Left Behind” is an act that makes states test their students to see their scores. The states receive funding based on if the students are able to pass the tests with good scores. Because the government requires schools to test their students every year, schools force teachers to focus on teaching students to pass the test. This creates bad teachers. By forcing the teachers to teach the students how to pass the tests, they are doing no more than forcing the students to memorize facts instead of learning the concepts behind everything. Students are taught to be machines – they take in one thing and spit it back out. Students are not taught to think for themselves and the reason why is because bad teachers are created from our corrupt society and government.

            Having bad teachers is just as terrible as having bad parents. Students are not robots. They are human beings that learn and absorb information from the environment they live in. In Savage Inequalities a student said, “I don’t think that busing students from their ghetto to a different school would do much good… You can take them out of the environment but you can’t take the environment out of them” (Kozol 170). This means that young minds really do absorb everything around them. If a student is left in a classroom all day with a person, they will eventually learn from them. The reason why bad teachers are as awful as bad parents is because of how much they can influence and effect a single child. A child spends so much time in school that teachers have a huge impact on their life. If a teacher showed up to school every day and was unmotivated to teach, the students would eventually feel apathetic and unmotivated to learn. Even if a teacher wasn’t trying to teach a student to be lazy and uncaring about school, if the teacher themselves do not teach the students to do otherwise, the students will unconsciously pick up and learn from the behavior of the adult in front of them. Students, and especially children, can absorb the things around them like a sponge. Without the right role model to follow, students will learn bad behaviors from the teachers they are put under the care of.

            Educators play a big role in a child’s life because of the power and authority they hold over the child. They are the ones in charge in the classroom and decide how children will learn and what kind of lesson plan they will use. In Savage Inequalities, a teacher uses a printed lesson plan to teach her students (184). In this lesson the teacher follows the print out and grows frustrated when her students cannot understand the concept behind what they are learning. Although the teacher was not successful in teaching the students, she was still the one in authority and still the one who is responsible for taking care of her students. Whether a teacher fails a students or helps them reach success, it is always their doing. They have such a huge impact on students because students are relying on them for guidance and help. When a teacher shows up to school happy and excited, it will eventually rub off on the students too. Students learn from their environments. If their classroom environment is bleak and discouraging because a teacher is unmotivated to teach, the students will eventually become discouraged, unhappy, and unmotivated to learn. If a teacher continually comes to school prepared to teach and happy, the environment surrounding the students will eventually be filled with happiness and hope. Teachers control what happens in the classroom, and ultimately, their students.

            Teachers are as important in a child’s life as a parent is. Children are placed under the care and responsibility of teachers just as they are under parents. For example, in a preschool, toddlers are placed under the care of teachers. These teachers are in charge of helping these children develop their brains and start to put together words and ideas in their minds. Just as parents are responsible for teaching their kids how to do things like picking up their toys at home, teachers are responsible for teaching their students how to think for themselves. Teachers are given the title of being teachers because it is their job to educate and teach. The reason why they are respected and thought of as America’s treasure is because they hold such a large responsibility and are expected to do what is best for their students to help them develop skills to think and learn so that in the future they will be ready to operate this country.