Teacher Tenure

Teacher Tenure Tenure was first adopted for professors in universities to prevent their dismissal based on political, personal, or other non-work related reasons. It was a protection against any form of dismissal which was unjustified and unfair. Currently tenure is available for K-12 grade level teachers and is granted after a couple of years of evaluation. Although this protection is granted to teachers of all grade levels tenure can potentially and does present problems with the dismissal of unqualified teachers. Tenure prevents teachers who are under performing from being fired as it is costly to the district to remove these teachers. Because of this negative effect schools nation wide are falling behind other elite schools in the world. Tenure is certainly not the only problem with public education, but it should be considered one of the greatest factors which contributes to the failure of public education. Once a teacher becomes tenured it is easy for that teacher to stop teaching at an adequate level and cause students to fall behind. Teachers union maintain that tenure provides protection for teachers yet it arguably causes teachers to simply stop caring as the process of firing them is nearly impossible and very costly. As a result many solutions have emerged in order to get rid of or better improve the process of teacher tenure. Three solutions which have been presented are reforming the tenure process by changing the amount of time it takes to fire a inadequate tenured teacher, renewable tenure contracts, and publicly recognizing and rewarding extraordinary teachers. Each of the solutions mentioned have been applied in different places and received a vast array of response. In Michigan a bill was pushed that would localize the tenuring process in order to save money and time spent limiting the time spent on the dismissal of an unqualified teacher. By localizing the tenuring process decisions could be made quicker and effectively. In this way good

Cited: "Michigan Teachers Announce Support of Common-sense Tenure Reform." Michigan Education Association. Web. 17 Apr. 2012. . News, Rehema Ellis, NBC. "States Tangle with Teacher Tenure." Msnbc.com. Msnbc Digital Network, 07 Mar. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2012. . "A Response to the Seven "Breakthrough Solutions"" Seven "Breakthrough Solutions" Web. 17 Apr. 2012. . "Should Teachers Get Tenure?" Should Teachers Get Tenure? Web. 17 Apr. 2012. .