Do employed Canadians really have to do a good job when they go to work every day?
How many of us are able to walk into the office or onto the work site, free of the worry of getting fired because how well we actually do our jobs does not really matter at all?
Anyone?
It goes without saying (or at least it seems like it most certainly should) that we must perform well for those who employ us to hold on to our jobs.
Many of us have performance reviews on a fairly regular basis, often every six months and surely every year.
Here at the Eagle, we evaluate our performance weekly, because it’s right there for the entire community to see in black and white.
Alberta’s education minister, Jeff Johnson, had his job reviewed this past week and failed remarkably.
The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) gave Johnson a failing grade for the province’s Task Force on Teaching Excellence Report.
One of the primary elements of this report is a recommendation to have teachers’ job performance evaluated every five years.
In the past, the ATA has evaluated the job performance of its own teachers, but Johnson informed more than 400 teacher representatives from around the province that this would no longer be the case.
The main objectives of the ATA, according to its website, is to advance and promote education in Alberta; to improve the teaching profession; to arouse and increase public interest in the importance of education; and to cooperate with other like organizations in Canada.
Being a union, it goes without saying that the ATA’s main objective is to represent teachers and teacher administrators in Alberta schools.
To get a true appreciation of what the ATA thinks of the Task Force on Teaching Excellence Report, one would only need look at the ATA’s website.
Under the heading, ‘What the Task Force got right,’ there are 540 words to relay this message, while under the heading, ‘What the Task Force got wrong,’ there are 5,106.
Why are teachers and their union representatives so vehemently against having their job performance reviewed?
Teachers have one of the most important and influential jobs this planet has to offer, and, in many countries around the globe, they are embarrassingly underpaid and under-appreciated.
Alberta teachers have a starting salary of around $58,500 a year. After 10 years in the classroom, their remuneration rises to just under $100,000 a year.
Alberta teachers are required to give 200 working days each year, and typically average in the area of 52 hours a week when marking assignments and extracurricular activities are taken into account during the school year.
So, if a teacher makes $95,000 a year (after 10 years teaching) and puts in 52 hours a week, it works out to $45.67 an hour.
No one is denying that teachers in 2014 do not have as easy a job as those who taught in decades past.
The politics of the classroom have changed dramatically over the years, some for the good, but some for the bad.
Job reviews are a good thing. Is the ministry of education the best entity to conduct that review? Debatable.
But these are our children – to use a cliché, they are our future. Those who are put in front of a classroom to educate these impressionable young souls better know what they are doing and do a good job doing it.
In a day and age when our kids have to deal with the many uncertainties that the world will throw their way, and clear each hurdle as not to get left behind, only the best instructors should be allowed to guide the next generation, and like most other professions, if you’re not up to the job, pick a different career.
