While the oft-publicized examples of tenure misuse dominate our perceptions, I think that tenure can allow teachers to challenge authority. The district in which I teach has a tech coordinator who is an abomination. While I understand that there are many different types of tech coordinators, he seems to take his job as police officer of the internet to be his one and only calling, the one and only line in his job description. I can’t tell you how many times in 10 years of teaching colleagues have gotten riled up and wondered out loud how he still has a job. I can’t tell you how many useful sites are whimsically blocked. I would love to show you the acceptable use policy that gets cited on the Lightspeed Systems Screen of Death-block and demonstrate how it is so vague that the it’s tantamount to censorship. No wait, it is straight, undemocratic, authoritarian censorship. For example, there’s nothing in the policy that speaks about blogs, yet sites are blocked because they are blogs. That’s it, just “site is categorized as: blogs.”

However, without tenure, there is no protection should anyone choose to do anything but complain to our principals. Heck, there’s no protection for our principals should they choose to do anything with our concerns. In short, there’s little I can do without risking my income, and through extension, my family’s well being. Tenure would at least give me protection to try something more.

Also how do rules of tenure affect administrators in schools who were previously teachers? How are they evaluated statewide?

I used to be completely against tenure because it can breed complacency and protect mediocre teachers who aren’t driven by any personal sense of craft. But as others have pointed out, lazy and/or exhausted/overwhelmed administrators should take care of this. But notice I said “used to be against tenure.”

A few years ago, I had a student who got C’s in my class. He didn’t feel like doing homework, didn’t study much, and put more effort into being popular than he put into schoolwork. In other words, he was a typical high school senior–not a bad kid, just getting through a required English class. His average was 78 and he was fine with it.

Maybe other experienced teachers know where this is going.

The boy’s father, a prominent local politician, wasn’t fine with it, and of course, it was my fault. Maybe the father was used to “fixing” the kid’s grades? I don’t know. But it was hell. I gave the kid extra work, extra time, etc., but he didn’t do it. He wasn’t interested. Ok. Again–nice enough kid. No big deal to him.

But the father sent me letters, called me at home, and issued threat after threat. He had meetings with administrators, counselors, and Board members who, in this city, are elected. From what that man put me through, I can say with complete certainty, had I not been tenured, I would’ve been, as they say in baseball, outta here.

How I do know this? I am evaluated informally each week and formally 4 times a year by a highly qualified teacher who has been trained on how to evaluate other teachers and by my principal who also has that quality training. In addition, I’ve seen my evaluators teach and lead and I respect them.

My scores from evaluations are well above proficient and near excellent (on the rubric terminology). In conversation and from knowing the rubric and watching other teachers, I know they are lacking in areas.

Is the rubric perfect for evaluation. No. Nothing is perfect for evaluation. Is excellent. Yes. It truly measures quality teaching.

Tenure makes it hard to reach teachers. They simply aren’t able to change, don’t want to change, or don’t care. Our students can’t and shouldn’t have to put up with teachers who aren’t at least proficient.

Good day.

Tenure is also valuable because as you note, it protects teachers from the whims of their evaluators. A good teacher who takes risks can’t point to their sales figures or profit margins to justify staying in their job. A good teacher in a tough school probably can’t reference their students’ sky-high test scores. But if we want talented teachers to perform with some confidence, to take some risks, and not to kowtow to every administrator who saunters through the door, some degree of union protection is necessary.

If we ditch tenure without significant increases in pay and professional respect, we’ll soon find that only sub-par performers will go into the teaching profession. Then we’ll get tenure back.

As a practicing administrator, I do believe that a teacher should be a part of the building team, and tenure can create a feeling that doing so is not necessary. If a school hires a principal that a teacher does not like, with tenure it is the teacher that causes the problems (such as going through the motions, using the same curriculum for 20 years, and just being negative), yet the principal must document this and then support it with another administrator. I’ll tell you that isn’t always easy when administrators are few in a district-personal experience with this one. Also to the concept of a principal being in the classroom to understand the current challenges faced by teachers, I agree. With limited substitutes, I am in the classroom several times a week – not observing but teaching. Then I stay late and come in early to get my own work done. It is legitimate to believe this is necessary as it does allow me to see the daily routines used by my teachers. I also know when these routines are lackluster and inadequate. Why would it then be inappropriate for me to determine a specific teacher should be removed from their duties if I believed our students were not getting the opportunities they deserve? If I am not fulfilling that role, I believe that it would be effective to have a superintendent remove me from my duties, and if that was not being done, the board should remove the superintendent as well.

It requires due process. It requires diligence. It requires integrity.

As a teacher, I have to behave as a PR agent to the 28 families in my class. My district can’t afford to hemorrhage students to charters due to ignorance or inaccurate perceptions. Tenure is little comfort to teachers in a district with sinking enrollment.

Teachers think we are talking about their jobs – we need to get away from thinking of schools as employment agencies and retirement homes. What we are really talking about is the many students who are graduating without the basic skills they need to succeed. There are many causes to this and one (among many) is the fact that poor teachers are so difficult to replace. I have seen the review process take two years and the poorly performing teacher is STILL in the classroom not doing the job up until the bitter end. A teacher looks at this situation and see two years of a contract – everyone else sees hundreds of students who have to waste their time with this teacher not learning anything.

BTW I have met some amazingly innovative teachers who keep up with their subject and what is happening in teaching and learning who are well over 55 – the myth that only the young get new things is perpetuated by the lazy.