Editorial: 74 will penalize liberal studies students looking to teach

Proposition 74 is bad news for liberal studies majors. If passed, the proposition would increase public teachers’ probation period from two to five years.

Supporters of the proposition say it will help weed out the bad teachers before they become permanent.

Others say they support it because it would save school money in the long run if they don’t have to fire as many permanent teachers as they do now.

But in reality, schools only fire one out of every 2,000 teachers hired annually, according to local school districts. So how much money could they possibly be saving?

Proposition 74 would leave a lot of Fresno State liberal studies majors in unsecure teaching positions for five years.

How would you feel if you were placed in an environment where you would be required to serve a five-year probationary period without a guarantee of a permanent job? Such a situation complicates the life of teacher who has spent thousands of dollars and four or more years in college preparing for a lifetime career.

Five years of not knowing whether you would have a secure job means five years not knowing if you should establish a permanent home, friends or start a family.

Proposition 74 has the power to dissuade students pursuing teaching careers. Some students have loans to pay off after college and can’t afford to work in an unsecured poisition for five years.

The results could be devastating. People might not want to become teachers anymore. This would increase the shortage of teachers in California where many schools are alreadyunderstaffed. The shortage would lead to other problems such as larger class sizes, which would negatively affect students’ performance.

The issue here isn’t whether or not there needs to be more time to weed out bad teachers. The problem is managers aren’t decisive enough to weed out bad teachers in two years. Two years is long enough to measure the effectiveness of teachers.

If school districts hired managers who actually did their jobs diligently and evaluated new teachers within the first two years, the problem of bad teachers in the classroom would never arise in the first place.

Managers are the ones who should get a five-year probation period to ensure they’re capable of making a good judgment about the teachers who would give students the best education.

It’s time to stop blaming bad teachers for making it to the classroom and to start blaming the managers for not being able to pick out the bad teachers in the two-year probationary period.
Vote no on Proposition 74.

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