Legal Bureaucracy Damaging NYC Schools, Says Reformer
by Jim Brown
May 27, 2005
(AgapePress) - The head of a bipartisan legal reform coalition says the law is suffocating student discipline and forcing schools to retain poor teachers in New York City public schools.Because of "hopeless bureaucracy," New York teachers are being subjected to "shocking disrespect by students -- and they can't do anything about it." That is according to attorney Philip Howard, chairman of the group Common Good. He says as legal requirements have stacked up over the past few decades, teachers have become less and less able to maintain control over the classroom.
"If, in order to discipline a child you have to potentially go to legal hearings to prove Johnny threw the pencil first or whatever, then -- and studies confirm this -- the teachers stop disciplining children, because they don't want to be dragged into some hearing," Howard explains. The attorney likens the situation to a version of central planning in the Soviet Union, where the government tried to tell everyone exactly how to grow crops -- but they could not get them to the marketplace.
In addition, says Howard, because of "absurd" legal requirements, it is virtually impossible nowadays for school systems to rid themselves of teachers who misbehave or teach poorly.
"The teachers don't trust the Board of Education, so they negotiate these protections for teachers that make it more likely that you could put somebody on death row than you could ever fire an incompetent teacher. It's just impossible," he observes. "I think in the last couple of years in New York City [where] there are 80,000 teachers ... only four have been able to be fired through the litigation process that's required."
Howard says only by getting rid of the public school bureaucracy can teachers be liberated to run the classroom and principals have the freedom to manage schools.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
