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Teacher tenure
State legislators are debating whether to end tenure for teachers, and unions have submitted their own plan to curb tenure rights. How should tenure be changed, or should it be scrapped altogether?
I don't think this discussion is really about teacher tenure at all. Rather, I see it as nothing less than an all-out attack on unions in general, the teaching profession as a whole, and teachers' collective-bargaining rights in particular. It's an unfortunate and wrong-headed response to the economic collapse and the bankruptcy of state and local governments, a response which calls for more privatization and selling off of public space (and decision making). In other words, it's simply a way to pay teachers less and get rid of those highly-skilled, experienced and often better-paid teachers, more easily. That's not good for kids.
This campaign against tenure is certainly not based on any reliable or valid educational research that I have seen. There is absolutely no evidence so far as I know, to show that eliminating tenure (btw, there's no such thing as "lifetime tenure" Catalyst eds.) or collective-bargaining rights for public employees, has ever done anything to improve student learning outcomes.
Case in point--Two-thirds of existing charter schools, where unions have been banned for more than a decade and tenure doesn't exist, aren't outperforming, the neighborhood public schools they were set up to compete with. The highest performing schools in the nation, the state and in Chicago all offer teacher tenure to qualified teachers after they have completed several years of their probationary period.
There is no good reason to assume that skilled principals can't remove hopelessly bad teachers during this probationary period. For the few who slip by there is a process of evaluation in place that can lead to removal or remediation--tenure or no tenure.
I wrote a piece at Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-klonsky-phd/teacher-evaluation-or-...), a few weeks ago, highlighting the best research-based practices on teacher evaluation. None of which include the removal of teacher tenure. if current evaluation strategies aren't working, new ones should be negotiated with all stakeholders involved.
Tenure isn't some kind of gift--a lifetime of unearned job security for "bad teachers," --as claimed by corporate business reformers like the Civic Committee or by ideologically-driven conservative pols down in Springfield. Rather tenure is offered as part of a negotiated (by board and teachers) incentive package, including salary and other benefits, as a way of attracting the best and most skilled teachers to a school district and keeping them there.
Current attacks on tenure, if successful, will put inner-city schools at an even greater disadvantage when it comes to recruiting the best and brightest. That will succeed only in widening the equity gap between rich and poor schools which is already severe.
I couldn't have put it better than Mike Klonsky. Public Sector unions are the new boogey-man and at such a convenient time when the financial sector is on the rebound after trillion dollar bailouts and popular rage is still palpable. The public discourse around tenure is a bait and switch whereby educators are blamed for the woes of a system beset with inequity sustained by the complicity of the political establishment, the business lobby, administrators, school boards, and the list goes on. We cannot substitute a fast track to dismissal for a comprehensive jobs program or equitable funding for all schools in the country. By almost all accounts family income is still the most significant variable in determining student achievement. A recent contributor to the Huffington Post remarked that of the ten wealthiest districts in California, not one is "failing." Why is it that ISAT scores in the city of Chicago correspond almost exactly to income where low income communities score lower than higher income communities?
Do I think that bad teachers should keep teaching? Absolutely not -- but this questions is also a trap one because on average, people who are in their first five years of teaching are not very good, it takes time to perfect the trade. With that in mind, do we really want a draconian model for quick dismissals that will damage our ability to recruit and retain people willing to dedicate their lives to a difficult profession? Due process is an absolutely essential ingredient to preserve our social commitment to education. With that said many teachers are already willing to engage in a process to shape a new evaluation model. Half the schools in Chicago will get the new evaluation system in 2012. We need to think about evaluation and dismissal as two sides of the same coin. If and when we have taken the time to develop an objective method of determining teacher excellence with opportunities for growth for teachers that need additional supports, we can also think about how that jibes with dismissal, but they cannot happen in isolation.