A few years back, my mother accepted a fairly important post within the federal government. She was excited and thrilled at the opportunity, but her elation was short-lived as she began working closely with a few members of her staff. Idle, disgruntled, and incompetent, this handful of employees had difficulty completing assigned tasks.

“Why can’t you just fire her?” I asked naively after hearing about yet another frustrating day at the office. “It’s not that easy,” she answered. Apparently, it ain’t that easy in the schools either.

More than half of roughly 1,000 teachers surveyed nationwide said it was very difficult to get rid of inept teachers who have tenure, according to a report released last week by the non-partisan think tank, Education Sector. In addition, about half of those surveyed said they personally knew of such a teacher.

About 70 percent of the teachers who were polled also said receiving tenure did not necessarily equate to teacher quality, with most of those surveyed saying teacher evaluations needed to be bolstered.

For instance, a study of teacher evaluations in Chicago Public Schools revealed that more than 90 percents of teachers received the top two ratings -- superior or excellent. Now, Chicago is making great strides to improving student academic achievement but I don’t know of any large, urban school system that can boast that level of teacher effectiveness.

Not wanting to deal with the hassle and the tussle of the grievance process and unions was one of the main reasons given by Chicago principals for not being harsher in their critiques. To be read more about the role unions play in teacher labor relations, especially during the high stakes testing era, check out ASBJ's April cover story by Senior Editor Del Stover.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor