Teacher tenure is a policy that protects educators from being fired without just cause. Their contract ensures employment and it is often difficult to dismiss a tenured teacher for reasons other than severe misconduct or incompetence. Because of this, it has become a controversial issue in public schools and many question if the policy is outdated.
Teacher tenure has existed since the early 20th century. Before then, little to no policies were in place to protect teachers from being fired for the wrong reasons. Some of the most common motives were race, gender, political affiliation, favoritism, and even pregnancy for women. This changed in 1885 when the National Education Association addressed the issue and one year later, Massachusetts became the first state to pass a tenure law.
Although this varies across state, public school teachers can earn tenure in as little as three years, but professors are not under review until at least five years in the position.
In fact, many states have reformed their tenure laws in response to Obama’s Race to the Top program, which requires schools to consider student achievement when granting tenures. Despite this modification, teacher tenure remains a controversy.
The Pros
- The main argument stems from its original purpose of implementation. Under tenure laws, teachers are protected from biased reasons, therefore, administration cannot fire someone just because. Charges, evaluations, and hearings must be filed and held. This process can cost up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- Prohibits schools from firing experienced teachers. As schools face budget cuts, it has been more common for schools to fire experienced and more expensive teachers in light of newer and less expensive teachers.
- Teachers have more freedom to teach less popular and more controversial topics. This may include readings and topics that school districts or administration may not approve or ban. Without this protection, some educators may not feel as safe or be open to teaching important topics.
The Cons
- With the guarantee of employment, it is almost impossible to get bad teachers out of the profession. Part of this is because with tenure, it is easy for teachers to become complacent, and essentially removes incentives and decreases work ethic. According to a study by the New Teacher Project, 81% of schools have low performing teachers, but administration will not do anything about it because of the time-consuming and expensive process.
- Tenure is often determined by seniority instead of teaching quality and performance.
- The system is designed to protect teachers instead of students. As the role of educators in students’ lives is changing, it is important that tenure laws are in the best interest of the children. If students are stuck with a tenured and unqualified teacher, it can result in serious damage to the students’ education.
Do you think teacher tenure should remain? What would be a possible standard middle ground for this policy?
I think that this issue is very interesting, and seeing both the pros and cons has allowed me to further understand the different stances. On the one hand, teachers need protection and deserve some extent of protection, for their profession should not be ripped up from under them based on something like race or gender. But, with this protection in place, it is harder to give the students the best that they deserve because schools cannot automatically fire unsuitable teachers. I think that with this teacher tenure that there should be a balance between protection for the teachers, but also ensuring the best possible learning and educational environment for the students? How do you feel that this could be achieved?
I believe the tenure system is so difficult to properly assess because it can be such a sexist way of promoting men in the teaching community. I remember when my mom went up for tenure at her university and she worked so hard. She told me that the only people at her school that received tenure were men and when she got rejected I knew that something was not right. I think there needs to be more monitoring on who receives tenure if tenure should even be allowed.
This is a very interesting topic. One of my favorite highschool teachers was on tenure, which I think allowed him to teach more outside the box and be more relaxed with his lessons. However he was my favorite teacher and even though I didn’t necessarily like the material his class was also my favorite class and I don’t know that we could have had such a relaxed comfortable class setting if he was not on tenure. I have noticed that newer teachers tend to be more uptight or detail orientated where as older teachers tend to be more relaxed, I am unsure if this is due to tenure or less energy as you get older. Regardless, I think for an elective class it was fine, but if I had a core class teacher as relaxed as him I don’t know if it would have been super beneficial.
I’m glad you brought this issue to the forefront because this has lurked in the back of my mind for years going through public education. I personally feel that “teacher tenure backup” shouldn’t be as lenient as it currently stands. Teachers need to be held to a higher level of accountability. I had many teachers who made students miserable for their unknown reasons and never got disciplined, even when numerous complaints were brought to the school board. It ultimately took the EEOC to forcibly remove one teacher/administrator in my district after years of abhorrent behavior (all because she had tenure).
This is a super interesting issue as both the pros and cons of teacher tenure are very compelling in my opinion. I think tenure should undergo some thorough revisions and qualifications in order to make sure that both the students and teachers are benefitting from this system. However, it will be very difficult to standardize this practice across the nation due to the widespread inconsistencies in the technicalities of tenure between states and districts. I feel as though tenure could be used as an essential tool in promoting diversity and fairness in the education system, yet it could just as easily be abused and promote the opposite.