What started out as the dream solution for a financial crisis in the now Shelby County School District in Memphis, TN, turned out to be a nightmare for the more seasoned or older teachers. When Bill and Melinda Gates donated money geared towards improving teaching and learning in Memphis, TN, the superintendent used it as a platform to force retirement or terminate teachers who were within the age of retirement. The idea was to get rid those teachers that made the most money so newer teachers could be hired at two for the salary of one. .
Memphis adopted a new system for evaluating teachers and the board policy stated that for the first year, it would be used as a tool for teacher improvement and no teacher would be terminated the first year of the implementation on the new process. Needless to say, several principals used this as a tool to remove certain individuals from their faculty in spite of not creating improvement plans and offering assistance to those who needed help.
As a 35-year teacher, my mother was appalled when she received notification that her principal had recommended she not be reelected for hire for the upcoming year. His reasons were due to the fact that she had received a low evaluation. According to board policy, there was to be a total of three evaluations by a certified evaluator. She had only received two by her principal, who was certified, and 1 by an assistant principal who was not certified. There were also strict guidelines as to when these evaluations were to be administered, and deadlines that had to be met.
When my mother submitted documentation to The Board of Educations Human Resources department showing that the guidelines were not followed, she was told in essence that as long as she had been teaching, she should be an expert in all that was required of a teacher. My mother in turn, found herself going through a tenure hearing that seemed to focus on the fact that she was a senior teacher.
