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| No | 48% | 206 votes | Total: 431 votes | |
| Yes | 52% | 225 votes |
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Add to FavoritesMost occupations have some sort of corporate climbing ladder. Educations ladder is tenure which many view as a ticket to keep a job, even if you are a lousy teacher.
In many cases this is in fact true, however there are also exceptional teachers in the trenches working and striving to educate our kids who deserve job security. Some professionals have their jobs protected by seniority or merit, which basically do the same thing. So we are definitely not the only profession that obtains job security.
Teachers have a limited amount of protection with tenure. As a teacher I know that politics play a huge role in hiring in my state. You seldom get your job based on credentials, experience, or the caliber of your skills, but many times it is by who you know or by your last name.
Tenure is a protective measure that helps prevent booting a good teacher out at the end of the year so "Sally Somebody" can be hired to replace them. A little nepotism goes a long way and would go further if tenure was not in place.
One of the biggest myths is that a tenured teacher is in the profession until he/she croaks. That is not true at all. If a school has been blessed with an incompetent teacher, it is the responsibility of the administrator in charge to document the teacher's lack of competence, showing legitimate cause to put the said teacher on a remediation plan.
Once the teacher is receiving guidance and is trying to legitimately improve, and does so, there should be no further problems. If the teacher refuses to improve on specified areas that at deficient, then these are grounds for termination.
Teaching is not a profession that is so different from other professions in the sense that we nurture our new teachers for 4 years. In Kentucky they must complete an internship with a qualified resource teacher, principal, and university supervisor observing and evaluating them three different times during the year. If they pass this stage they get their full certification to teach in Kentucky.
Once they have completed this stage they must be evaluated every year until the end of the fourth year. If all goes well, the teacher does receive tenure. This is a very stringent process which takes several years to be eligible for tenure. If a poor teacher receives tenure the fault must point to administrators. They are the ones who evaluate and have the power to stop this from ever happening.
If an incompetent teacher slips by, there are still avenues in which to make amends for the slip. Tenure is not a free pass, it is meant to provide job security to those who have earned it and deserve it. Keeping tenure is not the problem in our profession, it is keeping teachers long enough to receive tenure.
Learn more about this author, Kathy Myers.
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Yes
Tenure is a word that evokes high emotional reaction in persons involved in education; however, this is the only profession that has any such thing as tenure. There is little or no "job security" that matches tenure in other areas of the work force. As a rule, once a teacher has proved himself competent over three years, tenure is granted, and it takes nothing short of a military junta to remove that teacher/professor from that position.
Perhaps there was a time when tenure was legitimate protection from capricious administrators and school boards or trustees. Teaching contracts contained "morality clauses" that could be broadly interpreted. This is no longer true. School boards for the most part are made up of well rounded, invested persons in a community. Tenure, though, can be granted by the same whims and quirks that used to result in unearned dismissal. A case in point is Baylor University. Several teachers/professors were recently recommended for tenure by a perfectly competent board and department chairmen. The president refused tenure for these persons based on their desire to return Baylor to its original spiritual roots. They did not disagree with Baylor's current expressed goal of becoming a top-notch research university. They, in fact, fully agreed with that goal, which Baylor is well on the way to accomplishing. These professors do not feel that one goal negates the other; yet a narrow minded president has the final say in granting tenure or not, regardless of the aforementioned recommendations. This means that these teachers can be summarily dismissed after one more year of teaching, which could seriously impede their careers.
I had teachers and professors through the years with whom I did not always agree. That did not make me a bad student or make them bad teachers. It is my feeling that teachers must prove themselves on almost a daily basis, and certainly an annual basis. They are scrutinized by administration, school boards, parents, and even the students themselves. It always puzzled me that as interesting as history is, most history teachers did not transmit that to students in the classroom. It was often incredibly boring in my personal experience. That did not make them teachers worthy of dismissal. They were giving us facts we needed to know. That their teaching styles did not do much for me was beside the point. On the other hand, when a teacher is proven to be guilty of a moral or legal infraction, it should not be a federal case to remove them from a position of influence, which is exactly what teaching is.
There are occasions that teachers must fill the gap when there is a teacher shortage in a particular subject area. My son in law, who is now a high school principal, was a middle school science teacher when I met him. He was certified in science and math as well as being a coach. His skill areas were biology and algebra, but one year he had to teach an accelerated math class in basic calculus. He used to tell me that he pretty much stayed one chapter ahead of the students during that term. That did not make him a bad teacher; in truth, he was an excellent teacher, but had a board observed him in that calculus classroom they might have seen something much different. By the same token, observation of a teacher who uses methods that some persons might consider unorthodox may be just the kind of teacher who ignites a desire to learn in students.
Once our children start to school, they are there more than they are awake at home. Certainly we want them to have the best teachers possible throughout their school careers. We want their teachers to set good examples as well as teaching subject matter. Things and people change. Teachers, as most professionals are, should be evaluated on an annual basis, without the possibility of being granted staying power through tenure that would keep them in place unless the use of TNT is employed. Tenure is outdated and dangerous in today's academic environment.
Learn more about this author, Linda Burleson.
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