Schools
If Children are Held Accountable in D86, Why Aren't Teachers?
Opinion: Parent commends D86 board for holding the line on costs.
OPINION
By Chris Frank
Parent in Hinsdale District 86
The union insists that only more spending can sustain the high academic achievement at Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South. Interestingly enough, the teachers’ proposal is silent about what they are willing to offer in return for their demands. Greater academic rigor? A longer school calendar? A curriculum that pushes intellectual and creative boundaries? Nope, just the status quo, including blue union shirts every Monday.
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Based on what data? And to challenge this established viewpoint is to commit an act of heresy. But the
truth is that the performance of the Hinsdale high school teachers resembles the bell curve distribution of any large organization. Some teachers are incredible, many are average, and a handful are substandard.
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But, not all teachers are great. That is hyperbole.
Every student in the Hinsdale D86 district deserves the best teacher – not necessarily the most experienced one or the one with the most advanced degrees or the one who has retained his/her job due to tenure. The best teachers are those that inspire and challenge our kids every day, and those that themselves are continuously and intensely trained, supervised, and developed as educators.
Unfortunately, because the union clings to job protection in the form of tenure and is opposed to merit-based pay, our students are not assured of the highest quality education. If our students are held accountable for their performance, why shouldn’t the same apply to teachers?
I do not buy into the union’s foggy rhetoric about the D86 proposal threatening the Hinsdale “tradition of excellence.” The tradition of excellence starts at home with parents who set the bar high and expect their children to meet it. The sky will not fall, and there will be no teacher instability, as the union asserts, if their demands are not met.
I commend the D86 School Board for doing their best to hold the line on costs and to embrace an old-fashioned concept that has sadly been abandoned, namely: “living within your means.” The D86 School Board’s proposal is super-competitive and rational. Finally, some fiscal sanity is being interjected into the education debate.
Chris Frank is the parent of three boys, a 2014 Hinsdale Central graduate, an incoming junior and a seventh grader.
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