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
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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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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).
A former teacher, Lacey Bishop, who taught at Hillcrest Elementary School was not awarded tenure even though she had received good evaluations from her principal for two consecutive years. In addition, Mrs. Bishop was showered with compliments about her performance by her former principal Katrina Overton (Carroll, 2010). When Mrs. Bishop made it to her third year which made her eligible for tenure, the principal’s views about her performance had changed. In February 2010, when the principal was deciding to grant tenure, the principal complained about Mrs. Bishop’s classroom management, her lack of being prepared, and as a result; she was rated “Proficient” in nine areas, “Developing” in three, and “Unsatisfactory” in one on her Comprehensive
Removing a teacher from his or her position is very difficult to do. “Tenure benefits the state by helping to create a permanent and qualified teaching force” (Underwood, Webb 36). This makes it difficult to let a teacher go even when it is to make the school a better environment for the students. Although teachers do have the right to freedom of speech and are able to exercise their First Amendment right, that freedom is in a way limited by the school board. Pickering v. Board of Education (1968) is a great example of this. A high school science teacher was terminated by the board of education because a letter he wrote was published in one of the community’s newspapers. The letter discussed the unequal funding between academics and athletics. After
Richard Kahlenberg, the author of the article Tenure said that tenure was to protect students’ education and those who provide it. He goes on to say that before we can start digging into tenure we should first define what it is. Tenure, for American teachers is awarded after three years, and when it is awarded they have the right to know why a discharge is being sought out by the employer. They also have the right to have the issue decided by an impartial person. Kahlenberg listed why tenure is still necessary, some of them being; it strengthens legal protections, protects a range of people who may be discriminated against that the race and gender antidiscrimination laws do not, and tenure gives teachers the confidence to stand up to outsiders
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)
Webster's dictionary defines tenure as, “the act, right, manner, or term, of holding something (such as a landed property, a position, or an office); especially :a status granted after a trial period to a teacher that gives protection from summary dismissal. In other words, educators receive due process protection from accusations or charges against them.Years ago, educators who acted in destructive and abusive demeanor sidestep meaningful ramifications due to tenure safeguards .However, the supreme protection granted to tenured teachers diminished greatly as of July 2011. Michigan stripped the unassailable security of tenure and the world of education in Michigan altered permanently.Forlornly, educator Kathleen Goulouze failed to adhere to modifications of the updated teacher tenure decree.
A non-tenure employee is a temporary worker. They can be fired, and rid of very quickly. On the other hand, there is the tenure employee who is a permanent worker with job security. Over the years the number of non-tenure employees at the university almost doubled and the number of tenure employees is slowly decreasing. The reason for this is because it is way cheaper to have non tenure employees than tenure ones. Also,
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.
Why should teachers get tenure? This is one of the most controversial issues which is being discussed everywhere. Is it to help low-fund schools keep their good teacher or help some teachers not get fired? In my opinion teacher’s tenure isn’t the best choice because even though some teachers deserve it, some of them just don’t. What I am trying to say and I will explain in the paragraphs below is that teacher’s tenure has been misused and it needs to be removed or maybe changed.
importance of their jobs, and the fact that the quality of teachers are reducing due to the salary.
A federal law put in place to abolish tenure will revolutionize the public school system. It is a simple yet realistic advancement to push forth positive effects on many measures, from America's status as a country down to one school’s status. Not only will it affect education, but this legislation could potentially strike up other forms of employment that use permanent contracts. For instance the “U.S. Government Accountability Office [presented a] startling statistic: 40.4% of the U.S. workforce is now made up of contingent workers.” In other words, almost half of the nation's employed have not been guaranteed a permanent job and this has been a rising trend since the recession. It is obvious there are negative effects to this large percentage
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)
There are people who are criticizing why marijuana should not be legalized and why it’s dangerous to health. According to the research performed by Harvard University, “kids who used marijuana only recreationally showed significant abnormalities in the brain” (1). In a related study from the University Of Maryland School, Of Medicine found that “Regular marijuana use during adolescence, but not adulthood, may permanently impair cognition and increase the risk for psychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia.” (1) May cause death. In similar circumstances, people who advocate against marijuana being legalized may talk about, how marijuana is a gateway drug and if marijuana is legalized than drug use among kids will increase drastically. The position that I just stated is wrong and here’s why. What if your son or daughter or mother is passing away and the only thing that will assist them live little longer is marijuana and it 's illegal in your state, what would you do? I am not stating that cannabis can help people live longer, but it helps people feel much better and delays some internal diseases from spreading. I am proposing that Marijuana should be legalized in the United States. There are main three reasons as to why marijuana should be legalized: Economic reasons, Medical reasons, and criminal reasons.
Going back to the tenure and teacher union issues, I agree that everyone has the right to unionize in order to protect their self-interests, but the idea surrounding tenure is something that needs to be re-evaluated, and the teacher’s union needs to jump on board in order to get the education system moving in the right direction. The writers hint at a way in which tenure can be changed, and that is by offering rewards for high student grades instead of the current rule of once tenure is reached, a teacher can keep their position regardless of their efforts in the classroom. The way the movie presents this alternative method is by showing a challenge between the teachers of the school to earn the highest student grades on the state test; winner earning a bonus of $5,700. This type of evaluation based on student grades can also be taken to the opposite end of the spectrum, and teachers who have unacceptable student scores should be evaluated on their teaching methods, and if seen