Tenure Systems Should Not Be Eliminated

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.”

The new changes No Child Left Behind laws were passed earlier in 2010 stresses the importance of education has to be our main concern to ensure that our children are getting quality education. The legislation is called “Performance Counts,” It reevaluates tenure laws and evaluation. This means that teachers are evaluated and being laid off because of their performance in the classrooms. No matter how long the teacher has been in his/her position that still wouldn’t keep them in their position because of their low performance. Over the next 10 years the focus will be to prepare hundreds of new teachers in STEM science, technology, engineering, and math (Mclatchy, 2010). The program is to encourage students in the STEM field or alternative teacher certification programs to switch their careers if they choose to. For

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

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.

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).

Finally and foremost, school districts need to get rid of tenure. It is absolutely insane to allow a teacher to have absolute job security no matter how badly they perform. If a teacher can teach they will always have a job. Tenure does not protect high performing teachers as it was intended to do instead it protects low performing teachers. This is vital in getting rid of horrible teachers like Mrs. Eicher who is immune to job loss as a result of how long they have worked at the school.

Too many teachers lack the ability to educate their students, and prepare them for the future, and too few of these ineffective teachers are losing their jobs. Firing an incompetent teacher requires getting the union, the school board, the principal, and the judicial system involved, followed by thousands of dollars in legal fees. It is seldom that a teacher is ever fired. One California school spent eight thousand dollars to fire one teacher protected by tenure (Stephey). The trouble that schools must go through to fire an inept teacher deters schools from firing the teacher. The teacher will keep his job, and continue to poorly educate students and prepare them for the future.

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

(Brimley 2008) However, to equalize funds and maximize cost quality relationships grants and incentives are good places to start. School districts have to find ways to hire knowledgeable and committed teachers. One way to draw the knowledgeable teacher is to offer stipends for teacher shortage areas and sign on bonuses. Districts must continue to offer some type of incentives to maintain good teachers. Teacher tenure is another great incentive but can sometimes cause good teachers to become too laidback. Tenure grants educators “a right, term, or mode of holding or occupying something of value for a period of time.” (Tenure) Basically, tenure in the education realm grants what some would call stability or even security.

There is a consensus among the concerned stakeholders that the quality of teachers is the leading factor in determination of student performance. In the case of United States, the student performance can only be given an impetus by the efforts which the state can make, under all costs, to develop and retain high quality teachers. The measures undertaken determine the level of turnover of the school teachers. Lazear (2009) similarly argues the length of employment is a critical factor in averse risks of employment a trend contrary to teachers treatment. The turnover of public school teachers will refer to the rate at which the state, which is the teacher’s

With beginning teachers usually earning entirely less than other college graduates, the profession is at loss of top-notch, quality people who tend to find jobs seeking more money. Almost 50 percent leave the profession within 5 years, lured by higher pay and prestige elsewhere in the booming U.S. economy (World, 1999, par. 7). Starting teachers average a $25,735 salary in the United States compared to an engineer earning $56,820 or a physical therapist earning $56,600 (Engineer, 2000, par.1). And what signal does it send out about the value of good teachers and a good education when a 45-year-old teacher with a master’s degree earns $45,000 a year and a 25-year-old out of law school often starts at $80,000, considering a six year education for a master’s degree and a seven year education for a law degree (Greenhouse, 2002, par. 4)? A teacher is also given no compensation for the long hours spent basically in overtime work. The teacher’s day does not end when they leave school because if lesson plans, grading, or planning is not completed, it will have to be finished on their own time. Accountants, paralegals, and engineers all are compensated and get paid overtime for work that does not get completed in a regular day or if they want to stay and

First of all most should know that teacher tenure has a system of due process, checks, and balances so that teachers can be fired--just not to easily. Before argueing that teacher tenure should be abolished, one should listen to a few points.

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