In Defense of Tenure
One of the constant attacks on public school teachers is tenure. Despite many people’s claims, tenure is not equivalent to lifelong jobs like the Supreme Court justices have.
I favor tenure. Without it, I may not be employed right now. Without it, I may be searching for a job next year.
A quick recap: I am a middle-aged man with a wife, a daughter, a son very shortly, a cat, and a mortgage. I teach elementary school and have for 13 years.
For the previous five years I moved to a specific teaching position. That position, due to the state flat funding the district for five years, was eliminated this year. Without tenure, I would have been without a job. With tenure, I was guaranteed a teaching position. Because I am a “highly qualified” teacher, as defined by federal legislation, I now am a reading teacher.
But the state is essentially flat-funding our district again. That coupled with the desire to hire a fourth assistant superintendent and to once again recommend no cuts in character education, I was informed today that my reading teaching position is on the cut list. The district is dangling us to the state daring them to agree to eliminate our positions.
For me, it hardly matters. I have tenure. I will teach next year and move one step closer to maximum salary. How my district is going to spin laying off 80 non-tenured teachers to make room for those of us who may be cut will be interesting.
Tenure guarantees our mortgage company will continue to be paid on a timely basis. I am not beholden to the whims of authoritarians who may not know how to run a school. Rather, I am certificated as a highly qualified teacher and serve the community.
Could all this be true under a merit system? Absolutely. But teachers will require tenure until the system can be determined to be fair.
Have you ever watched your local school board?
Also blogged on this date . . .
- D'oh! - 2010
- Obama's Abortion Agenda - 2009
- McCain, The GOP & Me - 2008
- A Lost Opportunity - 2008
- The Oscars - 2006
- Outage Issue - 2006
- SCC Re-structured - 2006
- Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers Data - 2006
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Tags: Education
By Ken Adams
on 6 March 2007 @ 18:06
While tenure may protect you as an individual highly qualified teacher, it also protects many teachers whose sole qualification is longevity, regardless of their ability to teach. Tenure is a blunt instrument.
As for the possibility of job loss, most of the rest of us face that all the time. Why shouldn’t teachers (all of them) do so as well?
By Bob
on 6 March 2007 @ 20:45
Absolutely tenure protects the bad teachers . . . kind of. All tenure really does is guarantee a hearing should job action be had. That means there needs to be documented cause. That’s reasonable. That districts do not decide to use this action often is certainly not the teacher’s fault. Yes, I have worked with some teachers who are not up to snuff. I am sure you have worked with some less than adequate workers in your time that have remained despite their deficiencies.
Just to be clear: I have no issue with targeting the dead weight in the ranks.
Teachers do not have the right to negotiate their own contract. Teachers do not have the right to strike. Teachers do not have the right not to pay union dues. Restore those rights and then treat us like “regular” employees.
By Ken Adams
on 7 March 2007 @ 8:13
Sounds like we are mostly in agreement, then.
– I absolutely support allowing any professional to negotiate, individually or collectively, with his employer.
– I abhor compulsory collective bargaining when it is combined with mandatory membership and dues payment to the collective.
– I have no problem with teachers unions striking, but as professionals they also have to be prepared to accept the consequences. Labor laws are currently skewed too far toward the favor of the unions.
And just for full disclosure, I am a dues-paying member of a “professional association” with a collective bargaining agreement. Our agreement does not compel membership, which is as it should be.