Catholic Teachers, What's Their Deal, Man?

The National Post is carrying an article about a teacher who may lose his teaching job for refusing to follow the his principal's 'No Zero Policy.' This is in the Edmonton School Board. He failed a student who did 6 of the 15 assignments.

It focused my thinking on the situation of the Catholic Schools here in Ontario. I think about the OECTA - their union - how miserably informed and committed it is to their mission of Catholic Education. It's easy enough to deride from the outside such egregious failures in education as this particular case in Edmonton, but what about the equally - no, greater - failure of Catholic teachers to do their job? Yes, abundant apologies to those good Catholic school teachers I know. They, however, are in the minority. Visit the OECTA site any time and tell me if you are impressed by their commitment to excellence in education and in handing on the Catholic Faith. You'd get more Catholicity from a Jewish Board of education, if there were such a thing. I'm not joking.

There is very little Catholicity on that site. In fact, there is basically none. It is a disgrace. Here is something priceless from their president:

"Respecting Differences" is a document produced by the Ontario Catholic School Trustees' Association, which represents the officials elected to sit on Catholic school boards in Ontario. The document is not reflective of any views or input from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA), which represents the 45,000 elementary and secondary teachers who work in Ontario's publicly funded Catholic schools.

It's hilarious when incompetence happens 2000 kms away in Edmonton, but not when it occurs here with those who teach my children.

So, in the spirit of Mr. Lynden Dorval (the Edmontonian teacher mentioned above) why don't we bring in some of kind of performance review for the OECTA teachers? Most industries incorporate some kind of performance review process. I am sure the teachers get measured on their classroom performance, but I bet not on their knowledge of the Faith. I could design a very simple test to measure the knowledge and commitment of these teachers. And, I'll do it for free - just because it's that important!

Unless Mr. Dorval and I are both wrong, and objective performance doesn't actually matter, neither for teachers nor for students.