The Tenure System Should Be Abolished

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.

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).

In the article, “Rotten Apples,” Haley Sweetland Edwards discusses the issues of teacher tenure and struggling schools in California. Rich businessmen like David Welch argued that California’s constitution regarding to job protection makes it difficult for schools to remove bad teachers who are hurting their student’s future. This lead to a group of businessmen and lawyers joining together to start “Vergara” cases on several courts around the nation (149). However, the teacher’s union think that Welch’s objective was conflicting and puts the union in danger as a whole, not just the “bad” teachers. The Time’s method of presenting this article will determine their responsibility and whether their method justifies the journalistic way of writing about the topic.

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.

In Waiting for Superman, a documentary by Davis Guggenheim, Guggenheim explains how teacher unions are making it impossible to change public education for the benefit of American students. Guggenheim begins the documentary by explaining what tenure is. Tenure was created by universities to protect professors from losing their jobs for political reasons, but only after many years of teaching were they granted tenure. Public school teachers believed they should be granted tenure, so they formed unions and went on strike. Eventually they were granted tenure, and it's now part of every teachers contract, making it almost impossible to evoke change in the school systems.

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.

Besides the casualties of the capital and a majority of American cities, the teachers that fail to do their duties are the reasons for students failing educations. A major reason for this, is because of the tenure that the Teachers Union provides. Teachers that are slacking, but have tenure, can rarely get fired due to the long process it takes. In fact, one in every twenty-four thousand teachers with tenure get fired. By these people being allowed to stay in the education world, the children cannot receive the education they need to succeed. It is proven these

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

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

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

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)

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