dead wood

In the last few days, I've heard many people talk about replacing the seniority system with a "merit" based system. What I will argue is what Stanley Fish used to argue before he became a university administrator: merit is a tricky term.

Essentially, the seniority system is a merit based system we all agree on when we enter into a field with those parameters. Your merit is added up year after year, and if you do your job well, your merit increases with each year you invest into the system. A newcomers understands that she must stay in the system to gain merit, and looks forward to the day when she can feel some sense of assurance that, as long as she does not stink up the place, her job is relatively secure.

In other systems, merit can be replaced by nepotism, political favoring, or complete whim. In the corporate, non-union world, one gets a job and knows that at any point, one can be asked to leave. Some think this tenuous situation is somehow good for productivity. What it is good for is keeping people in line and maintaining sycophantic obsequiousness.

Would you like your teachers to feel, as they grade the exam of a school board member's kid, that one false move, and I'm out? Would you like your teachers to have absolutely no voice in a faculty meeting about the new programs administrators want to create? Would you like your teachers to worry that if they stand up for what is right, they may pay the price by being tossed out the door?

Further, how many administrators can face the financial pressure of wanting to ditch highly experienced and effective teachers because they just cost too damn much? We think in polyannish ways about how we could just cut the dead wood, but what would happen to the trunk?

This dead wood comment came up from a relative of a young woman who will most likely lose her job this fall. I feel terrible, and I agree that she is doing a great job, but the new system may not save her either. The fact is that we want to keep our favorites and dump the dead wood. But frankly, one person's dead wood is another's treasure.

Are there those in the profession who would be better off elsewhere? Of course. But most of the really good teachers I know, who started out as really quality educators, have continued to be great right up to retirement. Very few of the teachers who will be retiring at the end of this year are dead wood- trust me. They are dedicated, experienced educators who have had the freedom to be courageous leaders in a difficult field.

Before you cut the branch you are looking at, see where you will land, folks!