Dina Goheen's List: Essay 4

• New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have each fired fewer than 1 out of 1,000 of  their tenured teachers in recent years
• Unlike tenure for university professors, tenure for K-12 teachers does not, in  theory, shield them from dismissal. Instead, it's simply a guarantee of due  process — that if a teacher is fired, it will be for cause

  • good information on tenure
• Advocates of overhauling tenure say they favor due process. But they point out  that tenure predates subsequent labor laws that guard against discrimination or  other employer abuses.

1 more annotation...

• • story of the teacher who took 6 years to fire after sending explicit emails to a 16 year old student.
• John Stossel, writing in Reason magazine, detailed the case of a New York teacher who sent sexually explicit e-mails to a 16-year-old student. It took six years and plenty of expensive litigation to fire him, though the school had possession of the e-mails, and the teacher admitted sending them

• • From a teacher's point of view

• Louisiana’s 2010 teacher of the year said Wednesday that  teacher tenure should be abolished.
• But Boffy said the rules mean that, if teachers clear all the hurdles after  three years, they essentially have a job for good.

• “There are individuals who take advantage of that  situation,” she said.

• subject,” she said.

   

  “But when you start looking at what is in the best  interests of children, then you know the answer,” Boffy said.
• Backers of teacher tenure contend it protects educators from unfair firings

• Boffy told the group that, aside from teachers, judges and  university professors are nearly the only other jobs that offer tenure.

5 more annotations...

• • good sight for both pros and cons

• • comment in the video Dr Mike Cowan Cape Central High School Principal states, "Tenured teachers can be dismissed, If tenured teachers are not being fired it is because there is weak school leadership and not the fault of the tenure system, school leaders are not executing the tenure law adequately." Also reporter states that teachers need to know that their jobs are going to be there before they invest more in continuing education.

• "If indeed tenure teachers are not being dismissed, that  is the fault of weak school leadership," said Cowan. "That is not the  fault of the tenure law, that is because school leaders are not executing the  tenure law adequately."
• Cowan says it's important for teachers to have tenure because of unjust  situations.

• Cowan also says there's an expectation in education now  for teachers to continue their own education while still teaching. He says  tenure is important for teachers so they know they still have a job to pay for  that education.

• The petition suggests evaluating teachers on student  performance measured with objective criteria, but Dr. Cowan says that's harder  than it sounds to actually measure. He says there are teachers that don't teach  subjects on standardized tests like music, physical education, or gifted  programs, that would be difficult to analyze in this way.

3 more annotations...

• • Teachers union speaks on the defination of tenure and how it has been misrepresented.

• • lists the 4 proposed articles to the MO constitution.
    Teachers opposing because won't improve teacher quality
• filed with the Secretary of State an initiative petition to eliminate teacher  tenure through a constitutional amendment.
  
  
• Mark Ellinger
• Sinquefield’s proposal calls for the addition of five new sections to Article IX  of the Missouri Constitution. Following is the amendment:
  
  
• “Everyone agrees that every student deserves a highly skilled teacher,” Guinther  says. “That’s why we advocate for teaching standards and a strong teacher  evaluation system. This proposal does nothing to guarantee accountability or  improve teaching.”
  
  

3 more annotations...

• Once upon a time, teachers could be fired for wearing a skirt above the ankle,  appearing in public after 8 p.m., or speaking on topics not approved by the  school board and superintendent.
• Teachers need job protection so we can advocate for our students and challenge  bad policies that are rashly implemented in the name of improvement.
• Tenure is not in place to protect bad teachers. Nor was it implemented just to  promote race and gender equity.
• Another fallacy is that Petersen’s bill ensures only good teachers are kept.
• It is important the public understand that new isn’t always better. Schools that  have constant turnover are much less stable and less able to address the needs  of our most at-risk students.
• A more consistent teacher evaluation system is the means to ensure we have the  strongest possible teachers in our classrooms at all times. If there is an  underperforming teacher, that teacher should receive support to improve. If  there is no improvement, he or she should be removed—not just when layoffs are  required
• Tenure—and its effect—is one of the most maligned and misunderstood aspects of  teacher professionalism. Tenure’s purpose is to protect good teachers so they  can continue to advocate for their students and to learn in classrooms  unfettered by the political or administrative whim of the day. I suspect Mr.  Petersen knows that—and it galls him. He would like to go back

5 more annotations...

• • Snyder changed tenure from 4 yrs to 5 yrs.

• "Making staffing decisions based on merit and performance encourages good  teachers to keep doing what they are doing and helps ensure students receive the  highest quality education," Snyder said.  "This long overdue reform will  protect outstanding teachers who are enthusiastic about the material and able to  connect with students in a way that makes them want to learn."

• With this reform, it will now take five years for a teacher to qualify for  tenure, up from four, although teachers who are rated "highly effective" three  years in a row may earn tenure in less time.  During the initial  probationary period a teacher may be dismissed at any time.

• Even after a teacher earns tenure, he or she will have to continue earning  effective ratings in order to keep it.  School districts will have to  notify parents in writing if their child is taught by a teacher who is rated  ineffective. 

• The legislation also prohibits personnel issues related to layoffs and  employee discipline from being subject to union negotiations.  Teachers  will still be protected from dismissals that are arbitrary or capricious.

3 more annotations...

• With the emphasis on standardized testing after the passage of No Child Left  Behind in 2001, academic freedom has largely disappeared, and therefore a  primary argument in favor of teacher tenure has become moot.
• Tenure at the K-12 level is not earned, but given to nearly everyone. To receive  tenure at the university level, professors must show contributions to their  fields by publishing research.

• It's been called the holy grail of the teaching profession — academic freedom plus job security all rolled nicely into a union contract
• • 2.3 millioi teachers in the US have tenure
• Roughly 2.3 million public school teachers in the U.S. have tenure — a perk reserved for the noblest of professions (professors and judges also enjoy such rights).
• Though tenure doesn't guarantee lifetime employment, it does make firing teachers a difficult and costly process, one that involves the union, the school board, the principal, the judicial system and thousands of dollars in legal fees.
• In most states, a tenured teacher can't be dismisssed until charges are filed and months of evaluations, hearings and appeals have occurred
• a Florida teacher remained in the classroom for a year despite incidents in which she threw books at her students and demanded they referred to her as "Ms. God
• The start of the tenure movement paralleled similar labor struggles during the late 19th century. Just as steel and auto workers fought against unsafe working conditions and unlivable wages, teachers too demanded protection from parents and administrators who would try to dictate lesson plans or exclude controversial materials like Huck Finn from reading lists.
• In 1887, nearly 10,000 teachers from across the country met in Chicago for the first-ever conference of the National Educator's Association, now one of the country's most powerful teachers' unions.
• During the suffrage movement of the 1920s — when female teachers could be fired for getting married or getting pregnant or (gasp) wearing pants
• But where the tenure track for college professors can require a record of  published research and probationary periods of up to 10 years, K-12 teachers can  win tenure after working as little as two years in some states
• Some school districts have resorted to separation agreements, buyouts that effectively pay a teacher to leave his or her job. The practice has evolved as a way to avoid the extensive hearings and appeals required by union contracts and state-labor laws in firing a tenured teacher. (Costs can run as high as $100,000
• And thanks to the rigid testing requirements put in place by the No Child Left  Behind Act, the academic freedom that tenure was meant to protect has been  severely curtailed.
• Other districts simply transfer inadequate teachers to other schools in what Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called "the dance of the lemons."
• Former Mass. Gov. William Weld tried to pass legislation requiring teachers to take competency tests every five years, a move that triggered a number of complaints from local teachers' unions who called the bill adversarial and intrusive. Weld defended himself by explaining his stance as "anti-slob teacher," not "anti-teacher
• In 1997, Oregon abolished tenure and replaced it with 2-year renewable contracts and a rehabilitation program for underachieving instructors.
• Other states like Connecticut, New York and Michigan have simply eliminated the word "tenure" (from the Latin tenere, meaning to hold or keep) from the books while retaining the due-process rights it embodies
• • some good information to back my claim and at the bottom a brief rebuttle for tenure...good opposition points
• But some teachers argue tenure has become a scapegoat for a whole basket of educational and financial ills responsible for the dismal test scores and disappointing graduation rates in U.S. schools.
• Abolishing tenure doesn't address problems of underfunding, overcrowding or improving students' home environments.

17 more annotations...