Should Teacher Tenure Be Abolished?

[The Thriller]

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/700100405/Should-teacher-tenure-be-done-away-with.html

Over the last several months, especially in recent weeks, teacher tenure has been a hot topic of discussion. Should teachers have the right to job security for life after just a few years of teaching?

Just this week, according to the New York Times, New Jersey's governor, Chris Christie, proposed to abolish tenure for teachers, saying "the most important thing for learning is the quality of the teacher standing in front of the classroom" and that now is the time to get rid of those teachers who are not performing well.

But this is not an isolated event. Idaho's State Superintendent recently called for a replacement of teacher tenure with two-year contracts, according to Twin Falls Times-News.

Florida's governor also wants to end tenure, according to ABC. And Illinois lawmakers are trying to link teacher tenure to student results, which would allow principals to more easily fire teachers, states the Wall Street Journal. Utah lawmakers have also talked about making it easier for teachers to get fired when necessary.

John Wilson, executive director of the largest teachers' union, recently told The Lookout, that if states across the nation try to eliminate teacher tenure, there could be a strike at hand.

But some people believe doing away with teacher tenure is not the answer.

A recent letter to the editor to the trib.com, a Wyoming online news source, stated that tenure is important in keeping teachers' focuses where they should be — on their students.

Read more about the battle of teacher tenure at Education.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw0aBkt8CPA

I don't understand why Chris Christie is attacking teachers in this way. Are teachers really all that powerful in NJ? And why is the Teachers Union being attacked? Are they really that powerful? I'd think they'd be paid a lot more if their union was really so strong.

Anyway, wanting to know what your opinions are on this whole thing...

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I think everyone should be accountable, and not have a free ride.
I also think this should start at the top and there is alot wrong with the government and what they do that is a much bigger issue than the teachers.
I'm sure there are some teachers that could be a problem, and are a waste of space in their schools.... but, there are many more teachers that are superb, and really care about their students as they go above and beyond what they are paid for or what they should.

I don't know all of the details, but am behind any plan that will help the teachers do a better job, and allow for the removal of teachers that are coasting and not doing their job.

 

[CONAN]

I teach and I'm fine without tenure. But tenure is not as powerful as people think. There are ways to get around it. The prob is administration has to have the balls.

 

[Stickler]

Frankly, teachers are grossly overpaid for what most of them contribute, which is baby-sitting and busy-work. Should tenure be abolished? The short answer is: yes. I'm pretty bored with this notion that teachers are heroic and they don't receive their due. Teachers often seem to think that due to their "service" they deserve some special place of honor in American society, when in reality most of them are grinding out a paycheck like any other hack. How about a pay scale in which teachers are paid relative to the performance of their students?

I'm not impressed with teachers. Sorry. I can count the good teachers I had on one hand, and it's the same for most people I know.

(Note: there are some spectacular teachers out there, absolutely, who deserve our respect and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But they're rare and special. Conan and KEK are probably two of them. )

 

[CONAN]

I do always find it amusing that many of those complaining about teaching and/or also claiming to know the solutions have never taught. And also their research is usually anectdotal.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

Frankly, teachers are grossly overpaid for what most of them contribute, which is baby-sitting and busy-work. Should tenure be abolished? The short answer is: yes. I'm pretty bored with this notion that teachers are heroic and they don't receive their due. Teachers often seem to think that due to their "service" they deserve some special place of honor in American society, when in reality most of them are grinding out a paycheck like any other hack. How about a pay scale in which teachers are paid relative to the performance of their students?

I'm not impressed with teachers. Sorry. I can count the good teachers I had on one hand, and it's the same for most people I know.

(Note: there are some spectacular teachers out there, absolutely, who deserve our respect and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But they're rare and special. Conan and KEK are probably two of them. )

So how about we just get rid of schools, and either home school, or get these kids into the workforce.
Obviously, parents can do a much better job of teaching their own kids. How about we pay the parents based on what their kids learn at home, and then we only have to have proctored testing centers all over the country, instead of schools.

j/k in case you were wondering

 

[Stickler]

I do always find it amusing that many of those complaining about teaching and/or also claiming to know the solutions have never taught. And also their research is usually anectdotal.

I didn't claim to know the solutions, nor did I claim to have done any research. I take back what I said about you probably being a good teacher. I think reading comprehension is probably a requisite skill.

 

[Stickler]

So how about we just get rid of schools, and either home school, or get these kids into the workforce.
Obviously, parents can do a much better job of teaching their own kids. How about we pay the parents based on what their kids learn at home, and then we only have to have proctored testing centers all over the country, instead of schools.

j/k in case you were wondering

I don't think that would work out.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I don't think that would work out.

That would be why I put the j/k at the end.

I think you have a rough view of teachers.
I personally think at least half of the teachers out there are good, not necessarily great, and deserve our respect.
They also get paid a pretty low salary for K-12 and deserve more for the crap they have to put up with from the kids, administrations, governments, etc. They definitely add more value to our country than anyone in the entertainment industry, for example professional sports players and coaches.
College teachers get more of a paycheck, but generally more is expected of them. I also found less than half of my college teachers were worth my time in the classroom.

I think your view might change if you had to be a teacher for a year or two and put up with, and deal with, all they have to.

 

[Stickler]

That would be why I put the j/k at the end.

I think you have a rough view of teachers.
I personally think at least half of the teachers out there are good, not necessarily great, and deserve our respect.
They also get paid a pretty low salary for K-12 and deserve more for the crap they have to put up with from the kids, administrations, governments, etc. They definitely add more value to our country than anyone in the entertainment industry, for example professional sports players and coaches.
College teachers get more of a paycheck, but generally more is expected of them. I also found less than half of my college teachers were worth my time in the classroom.

I think your view might change if you had to be a teacher for a year or two and put up with, and deal with, all they have to.

I think my view of anybody might change if I had to do what they did for a year or two; that's a statement that could probably be universally applied to everyone and basically be true.

But my only experience with teachers is as a student. You can only suffer through so many American History classes taught by football coaches, or suffer through the classes, year after year, of teachers whose idea of teaching is to have you read the textbook chapter, take the quiz at the end, and then fill out worksheets for 45 minutes, or of Algebra teachers who require kids to "show their work" even though everybody in the classroom can do it in their heads, because it conveniently fills the time, where it would otherwise take ten minutes, or sit through English classes where they show you the movie adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, before you realize that 9 out of every ten teachers you encounter is a burned-out, uncaring bum.

When you're lucky enough to have a really excellent teacher, who actually engages the students, encourages critical thinking, responds well to challenges, knows his topic and can communicate it to the kids in a way they understand, the contrast between a good teacher and most teachers is so startling it can hardly be denied.

 

[LogGrad98]

3 problems with teaching: tenure, union, no standards or requirements of level of performance (accountability). The worst thing that happens if a teacher is incompetent and had tenure is that test scores for his/her school drop so they get less funding. The incompetent teacher with tenure does not get reprimanded or fired. The union will point out that there are no minimum standards that can be applied so you cannot adequately define "incomptetent".

FWIW I got this info partly from my brother-in-law who is a principal and has been trying, for going on three years, to remove an incompetent teacher who has been at the school for 15 years, all to no avail. And largely these are the roadblocks he runs into.

IMHO most teachers try hard, put in atrocious hours, and get underpaid for the service they perform, and are really unsung heroes. The above scenario just emphasizes how the good teachers get a bad rap with guys like that stinking things up.

Both ends of this spectrum needs to be fixed. Eliminating tenure won't help us pay teachers more who deserve it or reprimand/remove incompetent teachers who deserve it.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

3 problems with teaching: tenure, union, no standards or requirements of level of performance (accountability). The worst thing that happens if a teacher is incompetent and had tenure is that test scores for his/her school drop so they get less funding. The incompetent teacher with tenure does not get reprimanded or fired. The union will point out that there are no minimum standards that can be applied so you cannot adequately define "incomptetent".

FWIW I got this info partly from my brother-in-law who is a principal and has been trying, for going on three years, to remove an incompetent teacher who has been at the school for 15 years, all to no avail. And largely these are the roadblocks he runs into.

IMHO most teachers try hard, put in atrocious hours, and get underpaid for the service they perform, and are really unsung heroes. The above scenario just emphasizes how the good teachers get a bad rap with guys like that stinking things up.

Both ends of this spectrum needs to be fixed. Eliminating tenure won't help us pay teachers more who deserve it or reprimand/remove incompetent teachers who deserve it.

I am with you on the accountability issue.
With any job there needs to be some accountability, otherwise it becomes too easy to slack off.
What's the point of trying hard if you get paid the same, and there are no consequences?

Stickler, I agree with you on your examples of teachers, but I disagree in that I don't think most teachers are like that.
I do agree with the point that there are few teachers that really make a big difference, but the teachers that made a difference with me had different styles than teachers that made a difference with someone else. It doesn't mean those other teachers were bad, it just means their approach did not make an impact on my learning style. Even still, the great teachers are too few out there.

 

[franklin]

Maybe we should get rid of all this continuous learning garbage that tends to be nothing more than top down feel good bull **** and adds absolutely no value in the classroom. I know if I were a teacher that lightening the load in this area would go a long way to improving my attitude and probably lead to a more civil discussion.

Some teachers can't leave their kids long enough to take a piss even once during a working day. They're also required to show up to numerous activities outside the normal working day without additional compensation. I'd be a cranky *** if I were treated as a sub-standard citizen who isn't protected by workplace laws like the rest of society.

 

[VINYLONE]

Id like to hear Patricks take on things...

 

[CONAN]

I didn't claim to know the solutions, nor did I claim to have done any research. I take back what I said about you probably being a good teacher. I think reading comprehension is probably a requisite skill.

Am I supposed to know who you are or something? Anyway, my post wasn't even necessarily about you. But nice job getting defensive, Sally. Stay classy.

 

[One Brow]

If teachers had traditionally been given fair pay and fair treatment, there would never have been teacher's unions.

For many schools, an easy solution to save a few dollars has been to keep rotating through newly graduating candidates, at the expense of more capable and experienced teachers. Teachers were fired for trying new methods, not trying new methods, and a variety of other things that wound up being capricious.

It shouldn't be impossible to fire a teacher who's not trying anymore. However, sometimes that's claimed simply because a teacher doesn't feel the principals methods are effective.

Getting rid of the unions will put a lot more poser into the hands of politicians and principals. I'm not sure how that leads directly to better education, becuaseit will have it minuses as well as pluses.

By the way, notion that you can effectively judge a teacher's ability based on what 30 students do over a given year is statistically unsupportable. Kids performance varies too highly from year to year, as does the progress kids make in any given year.

 

[Scat]

I don't understand why Chris Christie is attacking teachers in this way. Are teachers really all that powerful in NJ? And why is the Teachers Union being attacked? Are they really that powerful? I'd think they'd be paid a lot more if their union was really so strong....

As I understand it, he's not attacking the teachers but rather the teacher's union.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ksLlAi3iIc

Here's another video where he talks about some of the specifics in his battle with the union. It's worth watching if you really want to know where he's coming from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMgYzEXWwNk&feature=related

Essentially he is trying to erase an $800 million deficit in education funding. To do this he asked that the teacher's union approve a 1 year freeze on pay increases and contribute 1.5% of their salary to cover their own health care insurance benefits. Right now it is 100% free... for life. If these teachers make on average 63K a year that would amount to $52.50 per month for their health insurance. I pay $360 per month to insure my family.

The union flat out declined and mounted a multi-million dollar campaign to discredit Christie. I have no sympathy for these jackals. The NJEA can cry me a river because they don't know how good they have it and why the feel like they should be insulated through this recession is beyond me.

 

[franklin]

If teachers had traditionally been given fair pay and fair treatment, there would never have been teacher's unions.

If the subjective subjection hadn't been so subjectively subjectified then the trivial triviaisms wouldn't have trivified trivia.



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By the way, One Brow, I don't think you were ever publicly thanked on here for your strong support of the Swine Flu Vaccine during that whole scare last year. It's people like you who prevented a huge outbreak from plaguing us all. In retrospect, I'd like to personally thank you for your efforts in thwarting disaster. Rock on dude!

 

[Gyp Rosetti]

My take.

Tenure's valuable because it's a safeguard against ageism. I think some form of it should be in place, though the standards which we have in place now (teaching three years and one day) are not nearly stringent enough. A longer (5-7 year) span with more observations and easier ways to remove awful tenured teachers should exist imo.

In some ways, Conan is right. Many teachers are not fired because administrators don't have balls. But it's also because the entire process to remove a tenured teacher is ridiculously expensive. See below.

https://teachersunionexposed.com/protecting.cfm

In NJ, we're going to go bankrupt unless something changes. I would agree that the NJEA should probably accept the 1.5% health contributions. That's nothing in the scheme of things. As far as pay freezes go, I'm on the fence.

 

[Gyp Rosetti]

Regarding rewarding stronger teachers with better pay or bonuses, I think it's too tough to pull off fairly. I say this as someone whose text scores kick *** compared to my peers. There would be too many factors and ways to look at who should be paid what and quite frankly, I'm not sure any of them are fair.