Room for debate in teacher tenure

Due to recent national anxiety over student performance, state governors have begun to attack teacher tenure.

As many students at Chadron State College, including myself, are education majors, this move caught my attention.

According to the New York Times, governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada, and New Jersey are trying to dismantle tenure.

Tenure is given to teachers who have worked two or three years on probation. This then gives teachers the right to due-process hearings before being dismissed.

Getting rid of tenure, as suggested by several governors in several different states, would then make it easier to fire teachers if the teacher is incompetent.

Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, said it best when he said, “Why aren’t governors standing up and saying, ‘In our state, we’ll devise a system where nobody will ever get into a classroom who isn’t competent?’ Instead they are saying ‘Let’s make it easy to fire teachers.’ That’s the wrong goal.”

This is absolutely true. Why not work harder to find teachers that are going to do a good job?

On the other hand, I think that we all have had that one or maybe two or maybe more teachers that have probably fallen short of standards.

Karen Enos, a professor in the CSC Education program, said, “I appreciate [teacher tenure] because it is a safety net, but then again there are teachers who should not be teaching.”

Those teachers who really should not be teaching may be protected by tenure teaching. If they really are terrible teachers, terminating them is a long, difficult and drawn out process.

Linda Brown, another professor in CSC’s education program, said, “It is difficult to get rid of teachers that aren’t very effective.”

She also explained that education is the only system that has anything like tenure.

“I feel like if schools were run more like a business it would be more effective,” Brown said.

I feel that both sides can be seen in this situation. On one hand, teacher tenure can be argued as a good thing: it makes sure that teachers aren’t discriminated against.

On the other hand, teacher tenure can be argued as a bad thing: it makes it much more difficult for administrations to get rid of people who aren’t performing as well as they should.

Perhaps the best way to deal with the situation is how Colorado is.

Recently in Colorado, there was a bill passed that says that after two years in a row of ineffective teaching, a teacher would no longer be allowed tenure protection. Instead, that teacher would be reverted back to probation for three years.

If after those three years, the teacher is putting out satisfactory results, they would earn back their tenure. This idea still protects teachers, but would also make it easier for administrators to get rid of incompetent teachers.

I started out this opinion thinking that the idea of getting rid of tenure was, frankly, terrible. However, after learning more, I found that I actually agree with those governors who want to get rid of it.

While tenure is a good safety, I feel that perhaps the stance on getting rid of it is the best option.

There are no other occupations that employ  a system like tenure. If you’re a bad doctor, you’re going to get fired. Period. So if you’re a bad teacher, shouldn’t it go the same way? That makes the most sense to me.