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Teacher Tenure Cons

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Pros and Cons of Teacher Tenure

Teacher tenure seems to be a topic of many talks these days. Whether they are professionals or not, everyone seems to have an opinion about this controversial subject. Moreover, it can be difficult to come up with something to speak when you encounter a person with a strong opinion one way or the other. With this in mind, here is a list of the pros and cons of teacher tenure that would help you get a good insight:

List of Pros of Teacher Tenure

1. It protects teachers from being fired for personal or non-work related reasons. Before tenure, teachers were dismissed when a principal wanted to make room to hire his friends or a new political party took seat. Also, women were dismissed for becoming pregnant, getting …show more content…

It is a justifiable reward for many years of good evaluations by administrators. School administrators are responsible for performing evaluations among teachers before granting them tenure and helping those who are struggling to develop. The poor judgment of administrators should be blamed upon the existence of inadequate teachers, and not teacher tenure.

4. It allows teachers to be advocates of their students and to openly disagree with district and school administrators. According to the award-winning history teacher, Kerry Sylvia, without tenure, she was concerned about being fired for her public opposition to her school administrators’ initiatives.

5. It encourages careful selection of effective and qualified teachers. Due to the fact that tenured teachers are very difficult to remove, school administrators are encouraged to take more care when making recruitment decisions. In addition, tenure urges administrators to dismiss under-performing teachers before they achieve tenure.

List of Cons of Teacher Tenure

1. It creates complacency. Because teachers know they are unlikely to lose their jobs, tenure creates complacency. Plus, it removes incentives for teachers to exert more effort and focus on improving their

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