Trump can do something to make education better and win teachers to his cause

Have you noticed that President Biden’s hold on his core constituencies is more uncertain these days than his stumbling attempts to board Air Force One? Biden’s abundant weaknesses give President Trump and his campaign a target-rich atmosphere where they can tempt people who usually vote for Democrats to vote differently. Teachers, for example, usually vote for Democrats. Mr. Trump can sway many of them this year by promising to remove an unnecessary burden from public education.

On day one of his new administration, I urge Donald Trump to sign a teachers’ “Emancipation Proclamation” that releases teachers and administrators from the drudgery of “Student Learning Objectives,” aka SLOs. As Educator-in-Chief, Donald can free teachers to teach again. This opportunity is so fat and juicy that I am almost ashamed to suggest it.

What is a Student Learning Objective? It is an irksome statistical study of teacher/student progress each semester. (That’s right, most teachers must do two of these each year.) Like most things that originate from educrats, the SLO is deceptively named. It sounds reasonable enough, but it is a cynical, ineffectual, and burdensome end-run around a third-rail reality of education—tenure.

For a long time, administrators have cursed tenure, which makes teachers almost impossible to sack because of their unions. Administrators understandably want to have the reasonable ability to fire teachers who are poor performers, and tenure has been their nemesis. (For a detailed history of tenure, see A Brief History of Tenure.)

Image by AI.

Ronald Reagan famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” SLOs validate his observation. They are from the government, and they aren’t helpful. Instead, they force teachers and administrators to do needless extra work that the administrators then use to evaluate the teachers.

Since calling for tenure’s end is like using a lit match to check to see if you have gas in the car tank, educrats shy away from it. Instead, some weasel educrat came up with the concept of SLO, which gives administrators more of a target when it comes to rating teachers.

The problem is that, while the burden is huge, their ability to measure teacher performance is minimal. This is exacerbated given that a hefty part of a teacher’s rating comes from his or her SLO performance. Inevitably, teachers and administrators are sorely tempted to cook the results.

Since the advent of personal computers, more and more responsibilities unrelated to actual teaching have been heaped upon teachers. These rapidly accumulating duties have led many teachers to rethink their career paths. This helps explain our current grievous shortage of experienced teachers in the USA.

If you have labored this far with this article, you might suggest abolishing both SLOs and tenure. That would put you in the realm of common sense and make you suspect to educrats. The FBI might open a file on you for such an exercise of clear thinking. I doubt a presidential order would kill the tenure beast. Getting rid of tenure would require legislation because it is deeply enshrined in law.

However, we can take advantage of the fact that, once again, we are in a crazy and unpredictable presidential election season. The Democrat talking heads are hoping out loud that former President Trump will have a wobbly hold on independents and on the many Americans who have understandably developed Biden fatigue over the last three years. They also rub their crystals, wishing that Trump will gaffe himself to death between now and the election. They pray Biden or whoever stands in for him will find a way to make us forget about the illegal invasion on our southern border, that we can’t afford to buy food, and that we all fret about rising crime. Fat chance.

However, in their infinite wisdom, the leftist educrats have given Mr. Trump a harpoon (SLOs) to aim at the faltering whale of an administration led by Mr. Biden. Here’s hoping he will use it to free many teachers. Who knows? They just might remember Mr. Trump with gratitude on November 5, 2024.

Ned Cosby, a frequent contributor to American Thinker, is a former pastor, veteran Coast Guard officer, and a retired career public high school teacher. His novel OUTCRY is a love story exposing the refusal of Christian leaders to report and discipline clergy who sexually abuse our young people. This work of fiction addresses crimes that are all too real. Cosby has also written Recollections From My Father’s House, tracing his own odyssey from 1954 to the present. For more info, visit Ned Cosby.