It is difficult to remove ineffective teachers in Gwinnett County, according to Washington, D.C. think tank that reviewed policies at 25 school districts across the country.
Gwinnett County Public Schools, Georgia’s largest district, has earned a reputation as a well-oiled educational machine that routinely turns in good results. It’s home to the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology, which usually tops the charts for test scores.
Yet teachers there enjoy strong job projections, even if they’re considered ineffective, according to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a well-known education policy research and advocacy group that advocates for charter schools and other school options.
On a scale of zero to 10, with zero being a "very difficult" environment to fire teachers and 10 being "easy," Gwinnett ranked in the middle. It's score of five earned it a "difficult to dismiss" description from Fordham.
Gwinnett offered no response when contacted about the report Friday.
It says most districts offer too many teacher protections.
No district scored an “easy to dismiss” ranking.
“Across the country, most districts and states continue to confer lifetime tenure on teachers,” and in most districts, the report concludes, “dismissing an ineffective veteran teacher remains far harder than is healthy for children, schools, taxpayers—and the teaching profession itself.”
The results are based on the answers to three questions: does tenure protect veteran teachers from performance-based dismissal, how long does it take to dismiss an ineffective veteran teacher and how vulnerable is an ineffective veteran teacher's dismissal to challenge?
The answers for Gwinnett: yes to the first question, one year minimum for the second and, finally, appeals are allowed through the state and the courts.
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