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| No | 49% | 130 votes | Total: 263 votes | |
| Yes | 51% | 133 votes |
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Add to FavoritesTenure for teachers is an attempt to remove politics and injustice from capricious school boards in the discipline or dismissal of teachers. It wasn't so long ago that a teaching job depended on what political party you were affiliated with, or who you were related to. Teachers could be summarily dismissed in order to create an opening for someone who was connected.
Critics of public education perpetuate the myth that tenure secures a job for life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tenure simply provides a teacher with due process. Teachers can be dismissed for incompetence, misconduct, or insubordination, but only after having been given the right to defend themselves. A panel of impartial members decides each case on its merits. In fact, any occupation that receives protection from unfair dismissal through a contract or federal law is tenured.
Another criticism leveled at tenure is that it protects mediocre teachers. Every good teacher understands that incompetents makes their job harder and diminishes the stature of their profession. It is incompetent school boards or principals who allow mediocre teachers to flourish. If those in charge would take the necessary steps of observing and counseling poor teachers, prior to their gaining tenure, they could eliminate these teachers at the onset of their careers.
Tenure protects good teachers. With the emphasis on using a score on a standardized test as a measure of student achievement, a teacher can have undue pressure placed on him. Administrators and school boards, who have to answer to the public for low-test scores, could suggest that standards be lowered. Without tenure to protect him, a teacher would have to bend to these wishes. Education would suffer as a result. Dumming down education is not the answer.
Parent involvement in a child's education is of paramount importance. A well-meaning parent can sometimes become a zealot. There have been instances where a parent has tried to have a teacher fired because of their displeasure with how their child was doing in school. Tenure also protects the teacher in cases where a grade is in question.
Some who are opposed to teacher tenure have offer to compromise by setting time limits on tenure. This would be tantamount to giving up your right to a fair trial every five years or so.
Without tenure we would return to past abuses by those in power who could replace older teachers with younger ones for less pay or fill teaching jobs through nepotism. The greatest risk would be to academic freedom. It is imperative that teachers be allowed to practice their profession without undue interference from those whose interest lie only in the bottom line.
Learn more about this author, Albert Aunchman.
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Yes
Abolished Teacher Tenure?
I am assuming by the title you are asking if the teacher's tenure should be abolished. My answer is yes. Why should a teacher be able to stay on working, because they have tenure, no matter what they do as quality teaching? Why do they have tenure? It can not be a fair play for everyone who does work hard and do not get their tenures.
The teachers should work as everyone else. Companies do not keep their employees in businesses, because they have tenure, when they are under performing. Teachers in tenure can not be fired easily. Their knowing this, leaves the door wide open for them to say and do, pretty much as they please in schools. Principals and school boards can not make them correct any problems, or if they do, it is extremely difficult. This looks like a bad way to run anything. And our children are the ones who are taught by teachers. Though there are many great teachers in this country, there are many bad ones. And if the bad ones have tenure, the sub standard teaching they do, reflects on the student's ability to learn. Again, it makes no sense to have a teacher get tenure.
I know it is a great honor for the teachers who do get tenure. It is still an idea which was not fully thought out, when tenure was first offered. Teachers have a safe and free range of what they want to do. Rules almost no longer apply to any teacher who claims tenure. Without rules and someone to answer to, these teachers do as they please. I can not help but feel, this holds back the public school system,colleges and universities; keeping these learning facilities and our children from becoming the best they can be.
If a child graduates from a school and has no idea how to read or do simple math, stop blaming it on the child's ability. Somewhere in the twelve years a child goes to school, it should have been caught and corrected. Maybe learning disabilities teachers find quickly to label children, before the doctors will agree, is just an excuse for bad teaching and not doing their jobs. Teaching children of any age is hard, it is tough, but if their hearts are not in this, they are not doing what they should.
Why tenure? It makes no sense. We should want the best education, we can get for our children, even in the public school systems, where we all pay taxes to, tenure only hurts the education process and holds our children back from what they could be learning. Bad teachers with tenure, should be easily fired, as the other teachers without tenure. Their should not be a preference in schools over teachers. It should be the same level of commitment and understanding for all the teachers. After all, these teachers are our children's leaders, they do influence their behaviors. Children should learn, there is no favoritism in the school system over one teacher than another.
Learn more about this author, Lucy Rucker.
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