Whistle-blowing teachers targeted

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http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/whistle-blowing-teachers-targeted-812369.html

His bosses had no trouble dismissing Ryan Abbott’s report of cheating on standardized tests in an Atlanta school. They simply cast him in a self-fulfilling role, Abbott says: “disgruntled teacher.”

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Abbott was already on probation, after four years at Benteen Elementary. His students had not posted the big increases in test scores seen in other classrooms. Yet he had the audacity to level charges against a popular colleague. After word of Abbott’s allegations spread through the school, Benteen’s principal opened an ethics case — against him.

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The newspaper reviewed reports of the school district’s internal investigations and spoke with more than a dozen current and former Atlanta educators. The documents and the interviews describe a culture that punishes employees who report wrongdoing and rewards those who keep silent. Some whistle-blowers end up under scrutiny themselves. Others are subjected to questions about their mental health. Some lose their jobs.

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LITTLE PROTECTION

In Atlanta, as in other Georgia school districts, teachers have little job security. Even those with tenure work under year-to-year contracts, and they have no collective bargaining rights. Younger teachers, in particular, say that if they run afoul of administrators, they risk being “non-renewed.”

This is why teachers are protective of unions and tenure. This is the kind of thing that can happen in a place with little protection. Saying "less job security" would lead to "less complacency" is total nonsense and show a lack of knowledge of school culture in general.