Introduction “I don’t know how they can still be in the classroom!” “Can’t they just fire them?” “Why do they have so many chances?” These are often the words that come out of many teachers, parents, and students’ mouths when having an unpleasant encounter with a lackluster teacher. Unfortunately, these lackluster teachers seem to walk a fine line where they perform just enough duties to stay employed but never go beyond average. Many of these cases involve educators who refuse to implement new strategies, leave students unsupervised, verbally degrade students’ abilities, have a lack of collaboration and communication skills, and an inconsistent sense of responsibility to perform contractual duties. While, these negative behaviors are not exposed in the media like other situations that require immediate teacher dismissal, they are unfortunately, everyday occurrence in most school districts or educational institutions, and affect students in a negative way. According to Educational Law (2016) teacher dismissals refers to “…the termination of employment contracts either during academic years for just cause or, for teachers with tenure, at the end of a given school year.” However, teacher dismissal has become extremely difficult due to lack of time for proper administrative documentation, union language, and shortage of new qualified teachers. Do I believe administrators do not take proper documentation? No. Do I believe teacher unions are bad? No. Do I believe all teachers
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
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.
After time, a teacher not caring isn’t a reason for them being fired, due to the fact that they’re a union, and unless they commit a serious crime as shown on plenty of news stations, then they’re free to do as they please as long as they aren’t necessarily breaking the law. Teaching can be one of the toughest jobs out there, and many people take it as a job anyone can do.
With any class complication, the new teachers are more likely to focus on condemning student behavior and less on actual teaching. This is a dilemma because not only are twenty three percent of teachers dropping out after five years, but also student’s achievement is based on the teacher’s commitment. Students in these low-income schools feel abandoned and setback when they keep getting new teachers who aren’t fully experienced (Shernoff
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
“ It is a systemic problem, and pursuing the elimination of tenure to solve it is a fool’s errand.” ( Teacher tenure: an innocent victim”)
As an educator and knowing educators on all spectrums of the field, the curiosity of when Melanated people are going to start becoming more accountable for OUR children is in full effect. The teacher who was completely way out of line in Baltimore is only a pin in a haystack as to what some teachers really think or say when they go home. Wenger (1998) wrote, “The focus on the social aspect of learning is not a displacement of the person. On the contrary, it is an emphasis on the person as a social participant, as a meaning-making entity for whom the social world is a resource for constituting an identity” (p. 2).
Teacher tenure has become a controversial issue in today's modernizing education. Rose Garrett an author for education.com explains teacher tenure is “a policy which gives professors and teachers a permanent contract, effectively ensuring them a guarantee of employment.” As a result of this outdated mechanism used in the majority of states, America is struggling to effectively produce students who are able to advance the country. Particularly four states have successfully outlawed teacher tenure, including Florida, North Carolina, Kansas and Iowa. However, “Sixteen states use teachers performance ratings as a component of decisions to grant tenure.[And]Seven states require districts to return teachers to probationary status if their performance
There are too many teachers in our schools that are not qualified to teach. Some don’t have a major, or even a minor, in the course that they are teaching. In twelfth grade I had an English teacher who would sit at her desk and crack jokes with the students, let us watch the
According to data gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2015, there are about 50.1 million public school students and 3.1 million teachers in the United States. When the number of teacher is not enough for teaching requirement. We have to improve our teachers’ quality as well as academic freedom. Before tenure, teachers could be fired by personal, religious, race, political reasons, or the teachers’ public speak-outs. In the early 19th century, the National Education Association introduced tenure. Tenure is just a contractual right to protect teachers from unfair expulsion for arbitrary or wrongful reasons (Robertson, 465). Furthermore, tenure is granted to the excellent teachers after a reasonable working period. By the way, we shouldn’t eliminate tenure system because it protects teachers from unfair dismissal, helps school administrators’ works more effectively, and attracts people to the teaching profession.
In The New York Times "Room for Debate" topics one presented issue discussed “How to Ensure and Improve Teacher Quality”. Over the years many school district officials worldwide have tried to come up with different procedures and the best protocol to help improve education. Teacher quality has a major influence on how students learn and perceive information being taught. The key ways to improve teacher quality is to Strengthening Candidate Selection and Placement, offer Constructive Feedback/Suggestions, provide professional development, provide adequate resources, and encourage open communication opportunities. For more effective results these are major factors in teacher quality and this essay will prove how these aspects lead to either positive or negative teacher quality in the world.
The education system today is going down the drain. One specific factor that contributes to the education system’s downfall is tenure for teachers. A tenure gives teachers a permanent contract that guarantees their employment and protects them from being fired. Teachers should not get tenure. Tenures make it difficult for schools to get rid of teachers who have attained tenure status throughout the country. They also make it harder for students to learn effectively in the classroom of a poorly performing teacher. Our education system deserves teachers that understand how to teach efficiently and are there for the students.
Our public schools are failing because they are operated under an antiquated system. Most are behemoth, bureaucratic bastions of inefficiency in which no one seems to be held accountable. It’s top-down management at its worst. The people who have the most contact with students in this over-burdened, under-funded system – the teachers – have the least input when it comes to “company” policy.