The Importance of Teacher Tenure in Public Schools Essay example

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.

Tenure is a type of protection from dismissal through tenure statues. Under these state statutes, a contract renews automatically each year. School districts must show cause and have documentation to dismiss tenured teachers. Tenured teachers may be dismissed for reasons of incompetency, insubordination, immoral conduct, neglect of duty, conviction of a crime, or fraud. A teacher that is certified by the state is assumed to be competent and it is the school board’s responsibility to prove incompetency. Immoral conduct is specified in statute in many states for grounds of dismissal of tenured teachers.

In the view of Guggenheim, the American public school system is broken because “bad” teachers cannot get fired since they all sign tenure. Tenure originated from universities and was created to prevent professors from being fired. Usually, professors have to work hard to get tenure when they have been teaching for many years. In the K-12 system, teachers get tenure automatically whether they are “good” or “bad” teachers. Therefore, tenure makes teachers feel entitled to their job since they can do whatever they want without getting into any trouble. Since administrators cannot fire the “bad” teachers, principals from different schools in the district do the “lemon dance”. The “lemon dance” is when the school principals exchange their “bad” teachers with other principals in the school district

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)

Andrew Vanacore writes in the Times-Picayune that some teachers do not accept the Jindal plan to change tenure, in part because teachers

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.

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.

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

The issue of teacher shortage today is continuing to grow. The effects of the achievement gap are reaching the teachers, not just the students: “...good administrators and teachers, who are doing their best under difficult circumstances, will be driven out of the profession…,” (Boyd-Zaharias 41). The achievement gap is part of the reason teachers feel they are underpaid, which happens to be one of the leading cause in teacher shortage considering, “Teachers were paid two percent less [than comparable workers] in 1994, but by 2015 the wage penalty rose to 17 percent,” (Long). Being a teacher requires passion in order to stay in the field, especially if the money in teaching is decreasing. Money is an important aspect for people when it comes to their careers, therefore, fewer people want to become teachers. This lack of teachers and the lack of college students studying to become a teacher leads to unqualified teachers and larger classroom sizes (Ostroff). Both of these causes are eventually affecting students’ learning environments. I chose this issue in education for my project because I have personally felt these effects, and I know others who have as well. As a future educator, I want to see better wages and better benefits, but this can only happen with qualified, passionate teachers. I plan on being one of them, and I plan on sparking a change. I am a future educator fighting to end teacher shortage.

This is another factor which could lead to high teacher turnover in the United States. The current teacher average salary has just gone higher by less than 4 percent from the salary of nearly two decades ago. This way, the teachers are not able to cope with the high inflation and escalated cost of life with this pay. This makes teachers to have high mobility rate in search for better jobs or the so called greener pastures.

The teacher plays the most vital role in education, without their involvement, no learning would exist. Currently the qualifications for teaching are fairly adequate. One serious problem is the salary for teachers and how highly they are respected by society. As of now, garbage collectors and paid more than teachers. It's as if Americans want clean neighborhoods more so than they do educated children. Why should a teacher be compelled to teach if they don't get much respect for it? Most teachers are what they are by a choice and a desire to educate. Most garbage collectors did not chose to be what they are, it's just a matter of circumstances. Being a teacher is not a 9-5 job. Teachers may work from 9-4 or 9-9, they have a very demanding schedule and work different lengthy hours for the same wage. If teachers are paid more, they are likely to teach better.

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