Removing Ineffective Teachers

I am not opposed to this idea.  There are some really bad teachers. I have a few issues with this, however:

1. It will be a team of lawyers and consultants - aka outside money - who will decide.  I don't want politicians and beauracrats making that decision.  

2. Who will define "good" in this case?  If it's based upon test scores, there is too much data to suggest that test scores are completely irrelevant to education.  Will they simply fire a bunch of constructivist teachers who seem to despise the system?

3. What type of improvement plans will the teachers have before they leave?  It seems that they need to help teachers change before simply firing them.

4. Why is it Mayor Bloomberg's issue and not the New York Department of Education.  I think it's one of the cases where someone believes that their financial success means they can influence education (Bloomberg, the Sergey and Brin from Google, Bill Gates, etc.)  Being rich and even having a degree does not mean being educated.  Simply look at our president.

Five lawyers and a prosecutor?  It sounds like a movie that doesn't make it to the big screen.  How could they possibly evaluate teachers?  Just seeing them enter the classroom would make a lot of teachers freeze up and be unable to teach.

Once again, we have others from the outside trying to dictate what goes on inside. Why is it that Education is treated this way? Law and Medicine almost never have others from the outside evaluating them? So, why the field of Education? It drives me crazy.

I like what hotteacher1976 mentioned.  What if we followed around all the lawyers and judged them based upon educational standards.  We could criticize their ethics. I'd love to grade them on citizenship with snide remarks like "Timmy's not sharing."  Or, we could grade their language.  "He may be a hot-shot lawyer, but he's ending all his sentences with prepositions."  

Why isn'tn' the department of Ed taking care of this.  I agree that bad teachers need to be gotten out of the system.  But they must have a chance to improve before  you release them.  Maybe they have just become bored with teaching?  Maybe, they have a class full of kids who just don't care to learn.

They need to be careful getting rid of teachers without investigating where the fault lies.  If you are in a school where no one cares if they learn, then maybe we should consider getting rid of those kids.

Accountability has always been a touchy subject for teachers.  Every school has issues concerning veteran tachers.  A possible solution might be to require PD that includes conceptual change in teaching strategies that is monitored by administration. Teaching is a life long learning plan that requires change over time.  Another touchy subject(change).