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 Because of this, it has become a controversial issue in public schools and many question if the policy is outdated.

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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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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

1. 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.
2. Tenure is often determined by seniority instead of teaching quality and performance.
3. 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?

Within the past year, COVID-19 has created large lifestyle and mental health disruptions, and education was no exception.

During the peak of the pandemic in April 2020, 91% of the global student population was affected by school closures, which is approximately 1.6 billion students in up to 194 countries. Although the school year has changed for most, COVID-19 was helpful in studying the role of technology in education and how well students and teachers could adapt to different learning environments.

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As schools around the world have shut down and are just now phasing into in-person instruction, we have seen incredible amounts of effort towards the use of technology in support of online learning. But how effective really is technology in education? Although this change has provided a source of continuity for students, there have been several barriers, such as lack of teacher preparedness and student access to online resources, blocking remote learning from its full potential.

For technology to be effective in school, teachers have to be prepared by understanding how to use it and properly work it into instruction. According to the OECD Teacher and Learning International Survey, only 60% of teachers have received professional development about the use of internet and technology, while 20% report needing help in this area. These numbers suggest that over half of the teacher population is not equipped enough to deal with this new delivery of education. All teachers, especially those that work with disadvantaged students, need to be trained to support and actively engage students during a time that requires self-motivation, resilience, and parental support.

The pandemic has also exposed many inequities, particularly the extreme digital divide. Compared to students from low-income communities, it is easier for those with privileged backgrounds to find alternative learning opportunities.

Students living in poverty are more likely to share devices and have less access to high-speed wireless internet in their homes. This leaves students with limited resources academically and economically behind.

According to a Pew Research Center Poll taken by households with children learning at home, 21% report that it is very likely or somewhat likely their children will not be able complete their schoolwork, 22% report their children must use public wifi to finish their schoolwork because there is not a reliable internet connection at home, and 29% report that it is at least somewhat likely their children will have to do their schoolwork on a cell phone. In addition to these sobering statistics, the results for specifically lower-income parents are worse.

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Although many factors have prevented successful online learning, there have been minor improvements. This includes teachers’ ability to use technology, troubleshoot problems, and connect with students on a 1-1 basis. Unfortunately, these positives do not outweigh the negatives, and it is important to bridge the digital divide that the pandemic has revealed.

COVID-19 has shown that technology can amplify good teachers’ work, but it can’t exactly replace it. Should technology only be used as a tool in the classroom? How will tecnhology be used when life goes back to normal?

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Standardized testing has been used in the U.S. since the early 1900s. With the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the use increased as the law stated that all students must be tested in reading and math from grades 3-8 and in high school. These tests have fueled an ongoing debate and requires a closer look on how standardized testing is used and whether or not they are useful for determining academic achievement.

According to The Glossary of Education Reform, standardized tests are any form of examinations that are taken and scored in a standard manner. Most questions are in a multiple choice or true/false format, allowing for quick and simple scoring. They can also be used for a variety of purposes and are not limtied to academic settings. However, they are commonly used to measure academic aptitude and achievement.

Standardized tests come with a variety of opinions. However, test experts and educators continue to utilize them as they are unbiased, compatible with easy scoring, a source of evaluation for improvement and comparison, and an incentive for both teachers and students’ achievement. Despite these benefits, standardized testing is still a subjective matter, and many question if they are fair to students and educators.

Effects on Students:

• A strong argument is that standardized tests fail to measure student performance; in reality, they determine which students are good test-takers. Several factors contribute to how well a student performs on a test, including stress, test anxiety, or even an empty stomach. The tests only show who prepared and scored well on that particular exam. In addition, low scores do not necessarily indicate lack of knowledge, and similarly high scores do not indicate an abundance of knowledge.
• Knowing that standardized tests are not completely accurate and may merely be a representation of memorization or multiple-choice skills, students are tied to these scores. Their academic career can heavily rely on standardized tests because schools and universities pay attention to numbers. These high stakes can only add to the stress and affect student performance. Fortunately, many schools are becoming test-optional, but this does not mean that standardized tests are no longer important.

Effects on Teachers:

• Standardized testing can be extremely important, and for educators, it may feel like their job and evaluations solely rely on their students’ performance. This creates more stress as teachers feel they have to teach to the test, rather than teach for the pure purpose of learning. They may also feel intense pressure from administration as high test scores can be better for the school as a whole.

Alternative Options:

With a few of these disadvantages in mind, there are alternatives for standardized testing that have been pulled together by experts!

1. Sampling: administering standardized tests to a random sample of students, instead of all students every year
2. Stealth Assessments: another way to collect reading and math scores; digital programs that students complete throughout the year in order to show progress over time
3. Multiple Measures: collecting other data in order to track student progress, rather than relying on one standardized test
   1. social and emotional skills survey
   2. game-based assessments
   3. performance/portfolio-based assessments
4. Inspections: different approaches to assessments including projects, reports, presentations, etc.

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I think these alternatives are great solutions and states should look into utilizing these and reducing standardized tests. The results from the 2018 Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) show that the U.S. ranked 36th out of the 79 countries that participate in the exam. An education expert states that the nation’s results have always been mediocre and the below average math score has not showed change since 2000. So, how effective is standardized testing really? Since the country has shown no significant progress.

In the 1954 landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in schools based on race was unconstitutional. This ruling overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and the “separate but equal” precedent, and was known as a turning point for equal opportunity in education.

Although this goal was intended to continue throughout time, there are still apparent disparities within the public education system. One of them is unequal education quality and access influenced by neighborhood and socioeconomic status.

Part of education funds come from property taxes, therefore, low-income neighborhood schools receive less money and high-income neighborhood schools receive more money. In addition to this, according to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS), African Americans are more likely to live in high-poverty neighborhoods, and experience lower quality of life with limited access to healthcare, jobs, healthy foods, and more.

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This socioeconomic inequity goes back for almost a century because of redlining.

Redlining is the illegal practice of financial institiutions refusing money or service for certain neighborhoods, primarily based on race. It is called redlining because banks, firms, and lenders would literally draw a red line on a map to mark hazardous neighborhoods.

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Historically, this act was used by mortgage lenders who would deny mortgages and loans to prevent minorities from housing opportunities. This often occurred even if the resident was eligible. Therefore, if an individual saved up and earned a high income, one could still be denied because of the area they live in, and essentially their race.

In 1968, the Fair Housing Act made this discriminatory practice illegal. However, redlining hindered economic development of low-income neighborhoods and the disparity is still evident today. This led to certain neighborhoods falling behind others, where property prices grew. A study shows that 74% of neighborhoods that were labeled hazardous in the past are low-to-moderate income today, and 64% of those are also minority neighborhoods. They are socioeconomically isolated, and therefore, racially isolated.

Systemic racism continues to manifest itself, and this is one clear example of how. This shows that making education equitable is not as easy as solely considering specific schools. The broken system goes far into the past and requires examining the surrounding communities, especially when housing policies largely reflect the quality and accessibility of education. It is unjust for low-income and/or minority communities to suffer from these discrepancies because of unethical practices such as redlining. These outdated policies should not be as impactful as they are today, harming low-income communities and people of color.

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Most of us probably have a favorite teacher that has inspired or left a lasting impact on us. For me, I have a few and they are from 2nd grade, 6th grade, and 12th grade English.

Each one has taught me both academic and non-academic lessons that I do not think I will ever forget. But most importantly, they have proven to me that among all school-related factors that influence achievement, teacher quality is one of the most essential. Research shows that effective teachers can have long-term effects on students and are a big contributor to their academic success. This includes spending their own money on supplies, voluntarily working after-hours, and going above and beyond as an educator.

But even with evidence and undeniable dedication, teachers continue to suffer from low pay. And it can only become worse under the crisis of COVID-19 with more budgetcuts and layoffs. But this may sound familiar to some educators because of what occurred during 2007 to 2009, the Great Recession.

Over a decade ago, the American education system endured lasting damages from the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Public schools had to make substantial cuts that led to insufficient education funding and lower teacher pay that schools are still attempting to recover from.

Little progress was made in the last couple of years as teachers across the country resorted to activism as a way to bring attention to the critical equity issue. According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 2019, public school teachers were paid 19.2% less compared to similar college-educated workers in other professions. In fact, this gap has increased since the 1990s. But even with the countless strikes and widespread movements, the current pandemic blocks any efforts made to improve the situation.

The average teacher salary through 2018-19 was $58,540. However, teacher pay significantly varies across the nation by state: from approximately $45,000 as the lowest salary to $85,000 as the highest salary in 2020. Evidently, teachers are severely underpaid, to the point that for some, the average teacher does make enough to live in their state.

But now is the time to learn from history, not repeat.

Teachers are underpaid for taking on one of the most important tasks for the future: educating the youth. Particularly during a time like this, where educators have to adjust to a remote learning environment and work more for less, we need them the most! However, economic recovery from the pandemic could take a long time and teacher pay may receive the worst end of it. So EducationWeek has created a list of “moderate-, low-, and no-cost strategies to retain teachers and incentivize the profession.” They include professional development stipends, bonuses/rewards for additional responsibilities, and possible donations from contacting local businesses.