Even abusive public employees can't get fired
By: Steven Greenhut
Op-Ed Contributor
April 22, 2010
Some of the most stunning articles I've read in a long while were in the Los Angeles Times' 2009 investigative series, "Failure gets a pass," which documents the near impossibility of firing unionized public school teachers in the massive Los Angeles Unified School District -- even those teachers credibly accused of sexually molesting or harassing their students.
The first article in the Times series, "Firing tenured teachers can be a costly and tortuous task," documented the case of teacher Carlos Polanco, who was accused by the school district of "immoral and unprofessional conduct" for making fun, in front of his class, of a student who had just returned after a suicide attempt.
This is from the school board: "He stated to the student, 'Look you can't even kill yourself.' Mr. Polanco then engaged other students in the discussion of the suicidal student's attempted suicide, which prompted another student to engage in a detailed explanation of how to hit a main artery."
That's horrifying and a good reason to fire this cruel man, who obviously has little concern for the safety of his students and lacks common decency. The school board voted to fire him, but that's just the first part in the firing process in a district that, according to the Times, fires far fewer than one teacher per 1,000 a year.
No wonder. The union-dominated Commission on Professional Competence overruled the Polanco firing.
The Times looked at every case (where records were still available) where the board fired a teacher and that firing was contested to the commission over the past 15 years, and concluded that "uilding a case for dismissal is so time-consuming, costly and draining for principals and administrators that many say they don't make the effort except in the most egregious cases."
The investigation found that classroom performance is almost never a cause for firing. There's virtually no way of getting rid of a teacher who is a really bad teacher, as long as that teacher doesn't molest students or commit major crimes and shows up to class.
The investigation documented one absurd case after another. A teacher drank alcohol in front of kids and made offensive, sexual remarks to students, but he couldn't be fired. Nor could the teacher who was "spotted lying on top of a female colleague in the metal shop" because there was no proof they were having sex.
The Times found that "[a]bout 160 instructors and others get salaries for doing nothing while their job fitness is reviewed. They collect roughly $10 million a year, even as layoffs are considered because of a budget gap."
The article focused on the case of Matthew Kim, who had repeated allegations of sexual harassment lodged against him. He was removed from the classroom seven years ago and has been collecting about $68,000 a year for doing nothing.
The teachers union won't allow the 160 teachers in limbo to do other types of work (clerical, cleaning, chores, etc.), so they sit in a school building -- rubber rooms, as they are often called -- and wait for a ruling.
The commission concluded that Kim had improperly touched three female students, but decided against firing him and mainly criticized the school district for not giving Kim better documentation of the allegations against him. The Times article brought attention to the case, which ended up in Superior Court, which ultimately upheld Kim's firing.
The school board, under pressure after the series, took up the issue of reforming firing procedures. Here's how the Times editorial board explained the backlash on June 15, 2009:
"They put it off. They debated it at length and watered it down. And in the end, the Los Angeles Unified school trustees barely passed a resolution asking the Legislature to make it a little easier to fire teachers accused of serious crimes. Mind you, not the ineffective teachers. ... Just the ones who stand accused of abusing or molesting students."
This system cannot reform itself.
Steven Greenhut is author of "Plunder! How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives And Bankrupting The Nation," from which this is excerpted.
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