Bad Teacher - Film Analysis

Tenure in school systems has been a highly controversial topic lately. Tenure refers to the job security of teachers after they have worked at a certain school for three years. When teachers earn tenure, it is very difficult to take away their jobs. This is especially true in higher education. According to the Washington Post, 32 states grant tenure after three years, nine states grant tenure after four or five years and four states never grant tenure at all. Granting tenure to all teachers gives everybody a job for life which should not be the case. Under-performing teachers should not have definite job security. America should remove academic tenure, replace it with a different system, and re-evaluate school teachers and professors.

Today, there seems to be a push to change the policy of teacher tenure. “Roughly 2.3 million public school teachers in the United States have tenure—a perk reserved for the noblest of professions (professors and judges also enjoy such rights).” (Stephey) Tenure refers to a policy which gives teachers a permanent contract that effectively ensuring them a guarantee of employment for life. Stephey continues to state, “Though tenure doesn’t guarantee lifetime employment, it does make firing teachers a difficult and costly process, one that involves the union, the school board, the principal, the judicial system and thousands of dollars in legal fees.”

This paper will effectively detail the issues surrounding policy as it pertains to teacher reform for New Jersey Tenure Laws. I will discuss why this new reform has made it impossible to terminate non-effective teachers because of the protection that TEACHNJ provides. I will also discuss inaccuracies as it pertains to accountability and transparency under the new tenure laws. Lastly, I will discuss the teacher rating system and evaluation system that rates teachers in four categories, from highly effective to ineffective. Teacher evaluations would be based on measures of student learning, such as improvement of state test scores, student work, and other practices linked to student achievement. The New Jersey Education Association has proposed streamlining the legal process for removing teachers, but has adamantly defended the basic job protection of tenure, saying it prevents unfair dismissal, favoritism and attempts to save money by firing expensive veterans. The state’s largest teacher’s union also vehemently opposes judging teachers largely on test scores, saying that doing so penalizes teachers with the most difficult students, and that the data is unreliable. Teachers are fearful of losing their jobs if they don’t raise test scores, teachers will redouble their test-preparation efforts, and quality instruction will be sacrificed,” NJEA President Barbara Keshishian said in a statement. “Parents should be alarmed and dismayed at this proposal.” (Brody)

Moreover, teacher tenure will be "reformed" so that principals and superintendents will have additional decision-making "discretion"; in other words, power will be taken from unions and given to bureaucrats within the state educational system, and tenure for teachers will be based on a new strategy that is, teachers will have earn "highly effective ratings" five out of six years to achieve tenure (Brennan, p. 2).

In the film “A Class Apart” we were able to depict the fight for the civil rights the Mexican-American people in Southwest had to do to be able to have their rights recognized as citizens. It tells us the story of the relevant Supreme Court case called Hernandez vs. Texas which helped end the discrimination towards Mexican-American people.

When renegotiating the contracts with the Chicago Teachers Union, Rahm Emmanuel proposed an evaluation system performance rating scale for teachers’ raises (Belkin & Banchero, 2012) , he wants the right to lay off teacher in low-performing and under-enrolled schools, a longer school day by 90 minutes, a longer school year by 10 days, and raise the class number to 44 students. The evaluation system that he intends to implement would be a test given to the students in the beginning of the year and then again in the end tracking the progress of the students. Depending on these scores, it would constitute up to 40% of the teachers annual salary performance increase. Emmanuel wants the control to have the ability to lay-off and close schools in the

The ability of teachers to earn tenure has sparked debate for many years. Whether it is an individual who is for or against teacher tenure, both sides present valid points. First, teacher tenure was established to provide security for teachers and prevent them from being fired for political reasons, personal reasons, non-work related reasons, or to hire new teachers at a lower salary to replace veteran teachers. Challengers to the teacher tenure law argue that it makes teachers complacent, and inhibits schools abilities to get rid of bad teachers. Tenure does not actually make it impossible to fire a teacher who has earned tenure or what is called a non-probationary status. It does however create a costly and lengthy process for dismissing a tenured teacher if the school system cannot prove that the individual has engaged in certain acts.

Traumatic experiences, difficult home lives, and the effect of drugs can leave a significant imprint on the rest of an individual’s life. The context which individuals are surrounded by during their developmental years has a significant impact on their mental health and development. In the documentary, The Bad Kids this idea is depicted through the portrayal of adolescence and early adulthood periods of the individuals at Black Rock Continuation High School. The film portrays the lives of at risk teens, who are given a second chance to get their life on track and earn a high school diploma. However, there are complications and setbacks that are holding them back from accomplishing their goals.

Teacher tenure is life-long job protection for teachers who have been employed as a teacher for one or more years depending on the state. The purpose of teacher tenure is to protect teachers from being fired for political or personal reasons. It also prevents school districts from eliminating experienced teachers in favor of less expensive teachers. The fundamental problem with teacher tenure is that it is given to a teacher after only one year on the job and requires little to no additional effort. The increased job security breeds complacency in many teachers who are teaching only to collect a paycheck. There is a need for teacher tenure but the program must be drastically reformed.

Tenure is something that teachers get that protects them from the possibility of them losing their jobs. I feel like this is a bad thing and that teachers shouldn’t be able to get. I didn’t know this but now it makes sense how there are alot of teachers that don’t do nothing in class and just hand out worksheets to students. I have always believe that without teachers we wouldn't be successful in life but tenure is something that needs to change its not fair for the schools and students. In conclusion, Have you ever ask yourself why a bad teacher still teaching or why they haven’t fired that teacher it's because a policy restriction called

It’s the lives of the children now that are being changed, not the ones who have already been through school with standard teachers. They are not getting the proper education they deserve because teachers are not putting in the effort it takes to teach them. They simply do what they absolutely have to to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Going above and beyond is obviously too much work… Even if it means many children grow up barely understanding anything they have learned because their teachers are not willing to work extra with them. Kids come to school to learn; not be ignored and brushed off by unfocused teachers. Usually a teacher has to work 1 or more years to receive tenure, depending on which state they live in, but why should they only try for the first few years of their jobs only to stop caring after they have gotten what they wanted? Tenure should not be given to anyone… Not when it can easily sacrifice a child’s education. Not to mention how unfair it is to teachers who are actually working hard and succeeding in their

Likewise in my introduction, Teachers Union Exposed, a special project of Center for Union Facts, reports, “In many major cities, only one out of 1000 teachers is fired for performance-related reasons. Why? Tenure. Tenure is the practice of guaranteeing a teacher their job.” Because the teachers have guaranteed jobs, they cannot be fired, despite their teaching performance. Thus, teachers with bad performance have the tenure as their back: they cannot be fired because of it. The problem with bad teachers not being fired arises from this, but through finding the cause, now we can find a solution to the

"Unions don't grant tenure - administrators do. Too many school boards and superintendents attack tenure rather than hold their own managers accountable for hiring and supervising teachers and, if necessary, removing those who don't make the grade. Tenure is granted by the board of education on recommendation of the superintendent -but many schools do a poor job of evaluating and supporting teachers…Tenure's not about protecting ‘bad’ teachers; it's about protecting good teachers. What would happen to teachers without tenure? They could - and would - be fired for virtually any reason. It’s not hard to imagine teachers being dismissed because they failed the daughter of an influential businessman or because the school board president's nephew needed a job. In these fiscally troubled times, what would stop a school board from replacing a veteran teacher at the top of the pay scale with a first-year teacher - simply to save money? Tenure is the first line of defense against attacks on academic freedom. Teachers can engage their students in a free exchange of ideas only if they are protected from arbitrary dismissal for doing so. Tenure prevents school boards from arbitrarily dismissing teachers for holding political, religious or social views with which they disagree.[Tenure] protects academic freedom the way the First Amendment protects freedom of the press” (NYSUT). Although that is the position that I

America is dependent on teachers; good, well educated teachers who dispense their knowledge onto their students without prejudice. History has shown us that teachers have had to go to great lengths to gain equal rights in the work place. Teachers used to have to follow strict and sometimes outrageous rules to keep their job. A female teacher could be fired from her job by getting pregnant or even by just wearing jeans to work or staying out too late. Teacher tenure was introduced in the early 1900s and protected teachers from being fired without due reason. Although the majority of teachers do great work in teaching their students in effective ways teacher tenure bring a sour taste to some of Americas tongues. Teacher tenure is an important part of Americas educational system, but it is in need of some changes which will help ineffective teachers become better educators and award teachers who do well in teaching their students.

Some argue that tenure allows bad teachers to stay in the classroom. Teachers that are just there to put in their time and don't really care about the students themselves. They feel that granting teachers tenure encourages them to become complacent about their jobs. “Tenures are something that can be beneficial to students, as well. By providing job security, teachers can concentrate on teaching, instead of worrying about overly obsessed parents coming after them. Take for instance, a parent getting a coach fired because they did not give their son or daughter enough play time on the court. There is the classic scenario of parents that will look for a teacher's flaws in teaching before they look for flaws in their child as a student.”(Sharifi)