DALLAS – An unspecified number of teachers in the Dallas Independent School District received a letter from administrators last week that contained a startling offer: Resign your job and receive a favorable referral or risk being fired for poor performance.

WFAA.com reports the educators had three to four days to make the potentially career-defining decision.

Roughly 2,000 teachers left the Dallas district after a similar letter went out last spring, reports WFAA.com.

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It’s not entirely clear how Dallas school officials are able to remove low-performing teachers with such ease. Texas teachers receive tenure after three years on the job – a process that observers describe as “virtually automatic.” That would suggest ineffective teachers can’t be dismissed without first going through a legal process.

Perhaps that’s what made the choice so difficult for the Dallas teachers who received a letter. If they voluntarily walk away from the district, they’ll receive a good job referral that should help them find employment in another school system.

If they fight the “non-renewal recommendation” and lose, they risk being stigmatized as a failed teacher.

It’s a heckuva choice.

Nobody should celebrate the fact that potentially hundreds of Dallas teachers are losing their jobs. It’s sad to see a person lose his or her livelihood and be forced to start over again. It can shatter the confidence of the young teachers who are a year or two out of college, and it can lead to financial calamity for the educators who’ve been in the classroom for a while and have families, mortgages and car payments.

But the fact is that Americans “invest” a lot of money every year on public schools for the sole purpose of providing children with quality education. If a teacher can’t help fulfill that mission, he or she shouldn’t be in the classroom. That may be harsh, but that’s a reality that virtually all American workers have to deal with, regardless of their line of work.

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Dallas school leaders should be supported for doing what’s in the best interests of the students, even if that means spoiling the hopes, dreams and careers of numerous adults.

The stakes– for the students, the state and for the entire nation – are simply too high to do otherwise.