Eliminating Teacher Tenure, Good idea or bad idea?

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0114/NJ-Gov.-Chris-Christie-wants-to-end-teacher-tenure-and-he-s-not-alone" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



NJ, Idaho and Florida are among several states seriously thinking about ending teacher tenure.



I for one think this is a fantastic idea especially given how our test scores compare internationally. Seems like every year i see how our math and science scores dipped yet again.



I'd love for a teacher to come on and tell me why tenure is a good idea and why it should be any different than a normal business career. Why should any mechanism, other than performance, keep a teacher in a job?



Here's my bad example: My 5th grade music teacher was a complete disgrace to music and literally taught us nothing about music. He did make us get up in front of the student body and shout a music-less, harmony-less version of "jimgle bells" at a "concert" -- during 'music' class made us listen to poor recordings of bach and beethoven put to a disco beat (not kidding). He had tenure and needed to go.

Tenure should not mean immunity. There should still be mechanisms in place to replace teachers like that. There probably are, but like any good bureaucratic organization, this can only be done with proper documentation. And most times, leaders don't take the time tor properly document stuff. So the reasons to fire someone become "hearsay" without the documentation.



Did you tell your parents about this class? Did they talk to the principal? Etc.



The real problem our educational system has is a lack of parent involvement. Too many parents think they can drop junior off at 8 and pick him up at 3 and he'll get an education. We do have some bad teachers, but we also have some bad parents.



Like Neo said in Parenthood, you have to get a license to drive, and a license to buy a gun, hell, you even have to get a license to own a dog, but they'll let any dumb @$$**** be a parent.



By the way, I'm not sure how the music goes to Jimgle Bells.

As a teacher, I'm all for getting rid of tenure (I also wholly support charter schools). I should point out, however, that the numbers on "how we compare internationally" are wholly misleading. We educate EVERY SINGLE person in our country, and report scores on all of them, many (most) countries do not. Also, let's not forget that a school and teachers are in place to facilitate learning, but most of the actual learning will be done by the student himself in the home, hopefully with the support of his parents. It's easy to point the finger of blame at teachers and public education in general (because, let's face it, its got a lot of problems), but I see the demise of american/family values and work ethic as a bigger hindrance to education.

Superb idea. Get rid of tenure and start paying those teachers that are doing a great job a LOT more.

A couple of my thoughts on education in America...



Get rid of tenure. Replace it with something else. Teachers should feel a sense of security in their job, not invulnerability.



Cut funding. This may be wildly unpopular, but I think we are throwing $$ into a bottomless pit, and way too much of that money is simply going into the administration and is never heard of again. How can charter schools do so much more with so much less money? There has to be a better way.



Bring back common sense. Children shouldn't get suspended for a year for bringing a toothpick or a watergun or something. Nor should teachers be suspended and sent to work offsite for touching a child or telling them to stop swearing.

hawkwing wrote:
A couple of my thoughts on education in America...



Get rid of tenure. Replace it with something else. Teachers should feel a sense of security in their job, not invulnerability.



Cut funding. This may be wildly unpopular, but I think we are throwing $$ into a bottomless pit, and way too much of that money is simply going into the administration and is never heard of again. How can charter schools do so much more with so much less money? There has to be a better way.



Bring back common sense. Children shouldn't get suspended for a year for bringing a toothpick or a watergun or something. Nor should teachers be suspended and sent to work offsite for touching a child or telling them to stop swearing.

I agree with all of this. I'd love to see a teacher use some corporal punishment if my kid deserved it.

I have mixed feelings on the tenure issue. Teachers, since they aren't paid as well as most other professionals, need to have security in their jobs. I agree with the poster who said the issue isn't that they can't be fired, it is that their supervisors are not properly documenting the misconduct/poor performance. It is the same thing in the Federal Government. Once an employee comes off of the probationary period, in order to fire a federal employee you have to do so "for such cause as promotes the efficiency of the service." Again, showing this requires supervisors to do their due diligence, counsel, and document, when most of the time, they can't be bothered.



As for grading teachers based on their students, that is a hard thing. So much of it depends on the motivation of the students, parents, etc.--not how much effort the teacher puts in. A good analogy is a football coach. A football coach can call all the right plays, get guys prepared for practice, etc. but it is up to the players to execute. Was Bronco a worse coach this year because his record wasn't as good? No, he just had more inexperienced players. So, with teachers, you have to be really careful about judging them by their student output, although there does need to be some accountability for motivating students. I'm just not sure how you would accurately predict that based on test scores. It would likely be better for the experts to evaluate teachers while they are teaching rather than relying on the output of students since there are too many other variables. Where you can control almost all of the significant inputs, measuring success on outputs makes sense. Teacher's have very little control over many of the most important inputs--parents' emphasis on education being one of the largest ones.

declocoug wrote:

I agree with all of this. I'd love to see a teacher use some corporal punishment if my kid deserved it.

Therein lies the rub. How do you know your kid deserves it? Or what if your kid didn't deserve it? Alabama still has corporal punishment but they allow parents to sign a waiver that says that they will get a suspension, instead of corporal punishment if it comes to that.



I feel much more confident in my own abilities to "reprove at times with sharpness and afterwards show an increase of love" than some of my fellow adults--especially when it comes to my own children.



The key to me isn't the form of punishment. The key to me is getting your kids to understand that you are not going to take their side if they misbehave. They need to see that parents deem it important to respect authority and follow rules--not that they (kids) are exceptions to the rules.

Cougarfan87 wrote:

As for grading teachers based on their students, that is a hard thing. So much of it depends on the motivation of the students, parents, etc.--not how much effort the teacher puts in.

Agree 100%.



In the elementary school my wife taught at, there was one sixth grade teacher that had been there a long time and was very popular. So all of the parents who cared about/were very involved in their kids' education requested that teacher. So he was a good teacher, with even better results, because the best parents were putting their kids in his class.



Meanwhile, the other sixth grade classes had lower test scores, etc., at least in part because the parents of those students didn't care as much.

Fabulous idea.



The only thing safer than a teaching job is being a byu asst. coach pre-2010.



Teachers deserve to be paid more, and less. Good teachers more, bad teachers fired. Government , along with it's institutions need to be more run like a business, and less like a bueracoracy.



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And by the way, if you want to see where our healthcare system is headed, look no further than public schools...



Those that would be great at being teachers/doctors won't do it, because they have the brains to see that 4+ yrs of college to barely scrape a living doesn't add up.



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BlueIsBetter wrote:
Those that would be great at being teachers/doctors won't do it, because they have the brains to see that 4+ yrs of college to barely scrape a living doesn't add up.

Hey, what are you saying about my teaching!? :lol: I kid, we are lucky enough to have that good teacher here and there because they really want to make a difference in student's lives, but add another 4-8 years of school and you'll find almost no one willing to make that sacrifice to be a government doctor.

Schmoe wrote:

Those that would be great at being teachers/doctors won't do it, because they have the brains to see that 4 yrs of college to barely scrape a living doesn't add up.

Hey, what are you saying about my teaching!? :lol: I kid, we are lucky enough to have that good teacher here and there because they really want to make a difference in student's lives, but add another 4-8 years of school and you'll find almost no one willing to make that sacrifice to be a government doctor.

No offense ;)



I'm just saying that teaching (and police work) miss out on a lot of people that have a great disposition and the right skill sets, because they can't swallow 40k starting out after 4 years of college.



There are the diamonds in the rough like you Schmoe, that do it for the right reasons, and walk the tightrope across all the wrong ones.

BlueIsBetter wrote:

I'm just saying that teaching (and police work) miss out on a lot of people that have a great disposition and the right skill sets, because they can't swallow 40k starting out after 4 years of college.

40K? I wish! I'll be happy to get anything above 30K my first three years. And I totally agree with you, I'm in my final semester and I've asked myself many times if making as much as a part-time truck driver is really worth all the work that I've put in, and I can't see anyone lasting through med school if they've got similar compensation in their future.

My wife is a teacher. She is frustrated by teachers who do a poor job. She replaced a teacher who was fired in the middle of the school year (and the teacher was tenured) The principal made a good case why the teacher needed to go. Another teacher was "forced" into an early retirement last year. So even with tenure we can get rid of really bad teachers--there simply needs to be a good reason.



I've always said we don't need better teachers--we need better parents. My wife taught a class of 25 kindergartners in Portland, and 5 of the children had dads in jail.

I've taught for a number of years. A few years ago I retired from full time teaching because of ieps (tooooooo much government!). I now substitute because I still love it. It is a joy to me to run into students.



I worked in a school that got rid of 3 tenured teachers. They weren't fired just pushed till they left. Obviously it can be done. There was a bad atmosphere in our school for that year.



I never felt underpaid but I was single and have been frugal all my life. I had no debt and therefore was able to retire early (and read cougarcorner). I was and am aware that the $$$ comes from tax payers. Is there waste in education? Not too much. Is there a waste in the system? A huge amount. I work in a district that has a superintendent, an assistant sup. and a deputy sup. There is probably $300,000 going to them. Then there are the "experts" running around the district that are not teaching kids, all of whom are counted in the teacher/student ratio. Some of them serve well but it needs to be looked at.



One thing that could help in education is putting more discipline in the schools. Too much of the time if a case makes it to court the judge says the kid has a right to do the activity being reviewed. The problem is, the judge isn't there in school. The teachers and principle have to deal with the kid and her/his parents.

Another thing; people in other jobs where unions are involved may be just as hard to fire as teachers.



People in other jobs where unions are involved may be just as hard to fire as teachers.



How do you discern a good teacher? After all the years I am still not sure. I think there's a lot of ways to be a good teacher but only a few ways to objectively determine it. You can have kids not like you but be teaching truths. You can have the kids like you but not be teaching too much. To me the best teachers love their kids and the kids love them and, being prepared, the teacher imparts to them many truths about many things including things few tests will ever reveal.

nuk13 wrote:
I never felt underpaid but I was single and have been frugal all my life. I had no debt and therefore was able to retire early (and read cougarcorner). I was and am aware that the $$$ comes from tax payers. Is there waste in education? Not too much. Is there a waste in the system? A huge amount. I work in a district that has a superintendent, an assistant sup. and a deputy sup. There is probably $300,000 going to them. Then there are the "experts" running around the district that are not teaching kids, all of whom are counted in the teacher/student ratio. Some of them serve well but it needs to be looked at.

This is the thing I hate most about the public education system. I can't think of a single positive thing that comes from school districts, other than shared bus systems. Is there really no other way to coordinate bus systems than to hire 3 idiot bureaucrats?

In NJ, those "idiot bureacrats' were actually quite intelligent.



And what I mean by that, is that they'd collect their 5-6 digit salaries for 'coordinating bus systems' and then take 1 or 2 other jobs at the same time. All government posts too!



see? they're not dumb!

Most teachers aren't bad and try very hard to do a difficult (and getting even more difficult) job. However, if we want things to change teachers will have to give up some security. Pay ok teachers less, even if they've been there a long time, pay good teachers well, regardless of their experience, and fire bad teachers.

Schmoe wrote:
Most teachers aren't bad and try very hard to do a difficult (and getting even more difficult) job. However, if we want things to change teachers will have to give up some security. Pay ok teachers less, even if they've been there a long time, pay good teachers well, regardless of their experience, and fire bad teachers.

Exactly. If our school systems were run like a business, things would be a lot different.



I hate people saying "Teachers don't get paid jack! blah blah blah" because some teachers get paid well over what they deserve. And my gut feeling is they are way over the average here.



The problem is, GOOD teachers don't get paid what THEY are worth. You would probably know the statistics better Nuk, but my guess is that for every one good teacher that stays late to grade papers/specializes in stuff during the summer/etc, there are 5 or 10 or 20 who don't. Pay that teacher 10-20 grand more a year, and give him/her 5 more students. Or 30 grand more, 10-15 more students, and a TA (obviously while getting rid of a couple salaries, both teaching and administrative).



Everyone is so concerned about "class sizes" when we have sucky teachers teaching our kids. I'd rather have the sizes be at 40 with a good teacher than 30 with one that just coasts through life.