Tenure Issues

Teacher tenure is in the news again, this time in Los Angeles, where the local paper has run a story that essentially finds that everyone is given tenure regardless of their actual teaching ability. Then, once they have tenure, those teachers are pretty much never fired.

This is sure to drive the teacher tenure opponents up the wall and probably with good reason. That said, I don't know that this is really the focus of all that's going wrong in our schools. I think it was Diane Ravitch who made the point that if unions and tenure decisions are really so bad, why aren't they ruining middle class suburban school systems? Fair question and one to which I haven't heard an answer.

However, it seems like tenure advocates have to be slapping themselves on this one too. Best case scenario is that tenure looks bad and hurts the PR for the unions and for teachers in general. (The worst case is that it actually hurts students learning.) So when you see a story like this, you know it's just hurting your own case.

I personally don't think that tenure is what's causing any sort of significant problems in our system. But that's no excuse for not being intelligent about how it's awarded and what it means. The article from the LA Times shows that neither of those things are taking place. It's not the end of the world, but it is a problem.

Tenure Review

And so the battle over teacher tenure continues. Courtest of the National Council on Teacher Quality, comes a report showing that most states (48) don't require any evidence of teacher effectiveness before granting tenure to the teachers. The article does mention that tenure doesn't mean a guaranteed job for life (which is more than many discussions on the topic include), but is generally critical of the system.

I have to say that I'm with the Council on this one. I'm not opposed to tenure. I'm not one of those who thinks that KIPP schools are going to be ruined now that some of them are engaging in collective bargaining. Tenure is fine and teacher unionization is fine. Neither of them are automatically opposed to successful education.

However, tenure seems to me like something that must be earned. At college campuses the tenure review committee is a big deal and the process takes years (and evidence). I don't think that the situation should be so radically different for our public schools. Let's grant tenure to the good teachers. But let them show that they've earned it first.

Also, those that are struggling, let's not just cut them loose. Just like every student has the potential to learn, let's assume that every teacher has the potential to be a good teacher. Instead of focusing on ways to make firing teachers easier, let's look at ways to make teachers better. The Gates Foundation is doing it. Maybe that will help get some of the idealocrats on board.