Under The Dome

I don't know much about teachers, but... (0.00 / 0)

Is there any possible way we can model teacher tenure with that of our state's supreme court?

Let's allow them to teach 3-5 years without tenure, then they get tenure for 5-10 years, then the school board gets to decide if they continue their tenure based on student performance.

I am against forcing teachers to retire at a certain age.  Their profession is much different than police and firefighters.  Some of my best teachers have been the older ones.

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by: southernbluedog @ Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 22:22:14 PM UTC

Makes sense (0.00 / 0)

Neither a Supreme Court member nor a college professor can gain tenure in three years as is the case with school teachers, so extending the probationary period I agree makes sense.  

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." - Sen. Ted Kennedy

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by: Bill Orr @ Mon Dec 13, 2010 at 00:51:37 AM UTC

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Very Few Good People Would Become Teachers Then (0.00 / 0)

Let's face it.  Would you choose a profession where you could be let go, even when you are doing a great job, because other people (the students) don't do something?  I hate to point out that the US already has a huge shortage of qualified teachers in math/science.  Making the profession less attractive isn't going to improve the situation.

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by: princetonblue @ Mon Dec 13, 2010 at 01:52:23 AM UTC

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Tenure, evaluation dismissal (0.00 / 0)

Very, very few jobs offer tenure, so teachers should expect to wait and meet a standard of excellence to gain tenure. They are there to teach students so evaluation based on reasonable criteria for student performance should be one of several measures used to determine whether they are doing a good job. Waiting longer for tenure and using well-designed student evaluation help assure the quality we want. Providing good salary increases to good teachers is more effective than using quick tenure and difficult dismissal policies.  

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." - Sen. Ted Kennedy

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by: Bill Orr @ Mon Dec 13, 2010 at 02:26:58 AM UTC

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Most Jobs have Job Security (0.00 / 0)

The claim that "very, very few jobs offer tenure" is essentially a lie that people keep bringing up for reasons I don't understand.  Maybe people hate the word tenure, but tenure is simply the word used for job security in the education world.   Anyone in a unionized position, for example, has the same protections as tenure.  

The central point stands unchallenged.  Teachers are professionals and you aren't going to get qualified students taking a cut in pay to chose a career with no job security.  

There is no evidence -- absolutely none -- that tenure has anything to do with the problems in our schools.  The recent films that have suggested this have produced their case by selective presentation of the evidence.

What we seem to want to do in this country is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  The problem is not the teachers.  The problem is with us.

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by: princetonblue @ Tue Dec 14, 2010 at 01:31:23 AM UTC

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So the teachers get the credit... (0.00 / 0)

When the results are good, but when the results are bad it isn't the teachers fault it is our fault.  Sounds like you are spouting off the NJEA union line.

The tenure system is antiquated and is unfair to both the students and the good teachers.  A system shouldn't award lifetime employment (with great pay, automatic raises, and overly generous benefits) after just three years of reviews.  What incentives are there for a teacher to continue to improve their teaching methods if no matter how hard they try, what they do, or how much time they put into it they will only receive as much money as the teacher who does nothing?

Why do gym teachers receive the same pay as Science teachers?

The system is broken... tenure needs to be abolished and big changes need to be made to our education system.

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by: cwood123 @ Tue Dec 14, 2010 at 04:05:10 AM UTC

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Nothing like a straw-man argument ... (4.00 / 1)

Now, let's not start putting words into my posts that I never wrote.   There is of course, some accountability between quality teachers and student performance.   The question that needs to be asked is how much of a connection is there?  The evidence is that teachers have an impact, but a much smaller impact than families, and communities.

There have been no studies that show that either tenure or unions are the problem.  Conservatives (and now some liberals) have leaped to attack tenure (and unions) mostly because they hate tenure.

There are three issues you raise:  tenure, unions, and salary scale.    The third issue is very important.  There is no reason that you can't reform the salary scale so that gym teachers and science teachers are paid differently.

But there is repeat, no evidence, that tenure is the problem.  Or unions for that matter.   By the way, tenure isn't a job for life regardless of how often you repeat it.  If you don't do your job, you will be fired.  The reason so few don't get fired is ...  wait for it ... because teachers actually do their jobs.  

By the way, I notice that you don't provide any facts or studies to back up your assertion.  Again, if your concern is really about a student's education, policy should be based on facts.

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by: princetonblue @ Tue Dec 14, 2010 at 04:36:05 AM UTC

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I must have missed all the studies you posted backing your statements... (0.00 / 0)

While I don't have any studies proving that my thoughts are correct I am using logic.  Isn't it logical to believe that giving someone a job for life after three years (unless they really mess up) doesn't give anyone the incentive to better themselves?  I just don't get the point of tenure.  I realize teachers need some sort of protection from random student accusations but the tenure system is broken.

And I agree with you about parents and families being the most important aspect of a child's education.

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by: cwood123 @ Tue Dec 14, 2010 at 13:58:12 PM UTC

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By the way... (0.00 / 0)

"The work goes on" that Ted Kennedy spoke of was not the demonization of teachers that is going on in this state.  

If one looks at the testimony that the Colorado state senator put forth, one finds that it is entirely based upon opinion, not facts.  I would hope that if the goal is our student's education, we would want to be looking at actual facts as we craft policies.

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by: princetonblue @ Tue Dec 14, 2010 at 01:38:01 AM UTC

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That's because the studies say nothing about tenure/unions (0.00 / 0)

It's hard to prove that something doesn't exist.  The best you can ever get from a study is that something was not found to be a cause.  And that is what pretty much every educational study that's been done for the past 30 years has shown.  There isn't any causation that has been found.

On the other hand, there are very specific claims currently being made that tenure and unions are harmful to student learning.  Some (like recent films) even claim that "studies" back up those claims.  But when you look at those studies, one finds that they don't support the claimed conclusions and the idea that tenure/unions are bad is based on a selective, misreading of the data.

This issue is not a he said/she said type case.  The anti-tenure, anti-union wingnuts are essentially making their arguments up with no facts.  If it weren't that the future of our kids were at stake, one could just laugh it off.

Here's the question:  If you believe that teachers need some sort of protection, then what system would you propose?  Tenure was put into place to provide that protection,  from students, parents, administrators, and politicians.  Where places adopt an alternate system with protections, it's essentially the same system as tenure.  

The problem is that some of the alternate systems are not providing protections.  The idea that 10% of all teachers should be laid off each year, ala GE, was tried in DC.  Luckily it was stopped with Rhea's firing.  And if you have a system without protections, the best teachers do leave and you're left with an even worse system.    

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by: princetonblue @ Tue Dec 14, 2010 at 15:06:29 PM UTC

Not to cast stones... (0.00 / 0)

but wasn't tenure really necessary when we didn't have such a suit happy culture and the job protections everyone enjoys currently?

I know there is concern that disgruntled parents/students would work their magic to get teachers removed, but it shouldn't really be that hard to show that in court.

Even in my manufacturing environement, we can't just fire someone willy-nilly wiithout the threat of suit. We have to but together a documentated case. I've also read that larger corporations who let older employees go in favor of younger/cheaper employees have been successfully sued for age discrimination. There seem to be protections built right into federal labor law.

Don't these avenues (that weren't available when tenure was established) mitigate somewhat the fear that without tenure teachers would be indiscriminately terminated?

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Tue Dec 14, 2010 at 17:59:22 PM UTC

Police/Firefighters (0.00 / 0)

have successfully sued for wrongful termination/race discrimination, lack of promotion numerous times. (the latest I can remember being Connecticut firefighters suing for reverse discrimination based on an exam)

Wouldn't teachers enjoy the same protections or is that special to firemen/police?

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Tue Dec 14, 2010 at 18:01:40 PM UTC

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Lawsuits (0.00 / 0)

Yes, if you're a senior citizen or a person of color or have a disability, you might have some protection from being fired because the employer fears a lawsuit.  But once there is a pattern of regularly letting people go, and the employer can demonstrate that a broad cross-section of people have been let go for similar reasons (for example, not having a reason is a perfectly acceptable reason in an at-will work state like NJ), that protection doesn't exist anymore.  

My best guess why police/firefighters have been successful in their suits is that there are so few firings that it is hard to make the case that race/sex/age wasn't a factor.  

But when some education reformers suggest that 5-10% of teachers should be fired every year, like they did at GE, so that a track record of non-bias exists,  the chance that such lawsuits would succeed would be low.  

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by: princetonblue @ Wed Dec 15, 2010 at 14:06:51 PM UTC

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I guess it depends on the local environment (0.00 / 0)

I work at a college where the professors are tenured and the non-teaching staff is not.   The non-teaching staff are hired on 1-3 year contracts.  The college has no problem with not renewing contracts when they expired.  Legally, they aren't firing anyone, but the result is the same.  There are no lawsuits as its completely legal.  But there is no job security.  There are a lot of quality people who have been let go simply because the new boss wants to replace them with someone else.  

So when it is asserted that tenure isn't necessary for job security in education, I have to disagree.   Tenure appears to be the only real job security.  

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by: princetonblue @ Wed Dec 15, 2010 at 14:02:02 PM UTC

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