STC head: Unions, tenure hamper learning
Reed speaks after film screening
MISSION — Unions and tenure, once necessary parts of the public education system, now hamper learning, the president of South Texas College said Friday night.
STC President Shirley Reed spoke after a screening of Waiting for Superman, a documentary about failings of public education and the promise of charter schools.
The screening was sponsored by IDEA Public Schools, which runs 16 charter schools across the Rio Grande Valley. The nearly two-hour documentary follows five students who, unsatisfied with their local school districts, attempt to enroll in charter schools.
Waiting for Superman director Davis Guggenheim also directed An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary about former Vice President Al Gore’s campaign to raise awareness of climate change.
Critics have given Guggenheim’s recent film high marks, and it’s now playing at Cinemark Tinseltown in Mission.
“I knew not to ever allow tenure,” Reed said. Instead, STC professors receive oneyear contracts. Anyone who doesn’t meet the community college’s expectations isn’t likely to stay.
“The other thing that I knew about working in the system so many years is ‘Don’t allow the unions in your door,’” Reed said. Teachers who aren’t helping educate the college’s 28,000 students should be removed, she said, adding that unions hamper the flexibility required to ensure quality teaching.
“With just those two factors, we were able to create an environment where teachers really care about the success of our students,” Reed said.
Her comments were echoed by David Guerra, president of the International Bank of Commerce.
“It breaks my heart when I see, for example, some other states where the teachers unions are so strong and when you have the president of the teachers union come across as ‘It’s about the union first, the teachers second, the students last,’” Guerra said.
IDEA has announced plans to launch 22 new schools across the Valley by 2012, which would include 15,000 students across Hidalgo and Cameron counties. The Texas Education Agency designated IDEA “exemplary,” the highest of four ratings, this year.
