By GREGORY SMITH
Business Columnist

BellSouth eliminates another 2100 jobs. Coca-Cola eliminates 6000 jobs. Painful as it is, businesses today view their workforce as temporary employees. . .hear today gone tomorrow.

Competition and rapidly changing technology forces businesses to become more flexible and hopefully more competitive.

Businesses have to adapt and accept new technology just to keep up. Workers have to learn new business skills or find themselves like dinosaurs-extinct.

However, teachers and schools have a different standard. They are exempt from reality and competition.

Despite what is happening in the business world, many schools are still teaching the same stuff I was taught when I was a kid when the only computer around was the size of a minivan.

Let's take a quick survey. How many schools are still making kids read The Tale of Two Cities? In addition to the classics, maybe they should also be reading, Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry, written by Dell Computer wizard, Michael Dell.

Good teachers shape our lives. I remember Mr. Tolzer my 4th grade teacher. He was a great teacher who understood me and my learning style. He let us fourth graders refinish his sailboat.

I also remember the law professor I had in graduate school. He was a wonderful teacher. He wasn't a “real” professor, but a practicing attorney.

His classes were full of true stories that were current and relevant to the class. I got more out of his class than most of the others. On the other hand, I remember the sorry college sociology professor who literally read out of the textbook for the whole period. Two of us brave students were so frustrated we went to the dean to complain.

I still remember what the dean said. He said, “He has tenure and there is nothing I can do.”

Here in Rockdale Country, just outside Atlanta, where my kids attend school, we have great teachers and we have some sorry teachers.

Even though good teachers outnumber the bad, it is the bad teachers who stand out the most and do the greatest damage.

From my kids and their friends, I hear about teachers who rather scream at kids. Another teacher likes to give students work sheets so she can play computer Solitaire during class.

I hear about teachers who have marital problems and tell the students all the gory details of their personal lives. I remember an English teacher I had in high school would sit on the desk and ask us if we thought she was pretty.

Why do we tolerate sorry teachers when the business world that these students will soon have to earn a living in is so unforgiving and demanding?

As parents can we afford to let our kids sit through a class with a sorry teacher? I don't think so. We have the most powerful country in the world but a questionable education system. It doesn't compute. Teachers and school administrators listen up. . .get with the program and with reality.

Change, get rid of tenure or give us school vouchers where we can pick the school we want.

Gregory P. Smith, author of The New Leader, TNT for Teams and How to Attract, Keep and Motivate Your Workforce. He speaks at conferences, leads seminars and helps organizations solve problems.

He leads an organization called Chart Your Course International located in Conyers, Georgia. Phone him at (770)860-9464 or send an email at greg@chartcourse.com. More information and articles are available at www.chartcourse.com.

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