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TeacherTenure 4 - 12 Apr 2018 - Main.CeciliaPlaza
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="EducationReform" |
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-- ZaneMuller - 09 Apr 2018 | | | Hi Zane -- thank you for the thoughtful post. One point that lingers in the background of this issue, which was mentioned briefly in class, is the baseline posture of our "At Will Employment" system in the United States. It's a default that we've all come to accept and expect without question. It might create flexibility in hiring and changing one's role, but it undoubtedly feeds into the inherent disparity of bargaining power between employer and employee. Unions help tip the scale back to the employee, and I'm okay with the thumb on the scale being heavy in this case. Unions fight for and have obtained security of tenure for their members, which changes the working dynamic and prevents economically expedient firings. Teachers deserve this protection and this protection arguably creates much more benefit than it does abuse. It's a shield that protects a teacher's daily decisions and allows for some healthy creativity and perhaps some necessary "insubordination" to go against bad administrative policies without fear of being sacked for no cause. Unions also serve as a sword, but my intuition tells me that they are still the David going up against Goliath. At the end of the day, empowered teachers will led to empowered students.
-- MilesGreene - 11 Apr 2018 | |
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I think we may be oversimplifying things a bit here. It seems like the discussion is about yes-tenure or no-tenure, when really there is room for a gradient. I don't think teachers should be at-will employees, but I do think we need to address the "lemon dance." Bad teachers get shuffled from school to school within a district because no school wants them, so they all keep pawning off the "lemon." Alternatively, they get put on some kind of administrative leave. I agree that it may be very difficult to accurately identify and reward good teachers, but I disagree that it would be difficult to identify the bad ones--or at least the real lemons in the bunch.
At the same time, relaxing tenure can't happen on its own; other reforms have to be put in place at the same time to incentivize actual quality performance rather than teaching to the test, and also to make it realistically possible to teach--meaning more and better resources and less students per class. But that means more money and more teachers. Speaking of which, we should pay teachers more--not just because they're ridiculously underpaid for what they're being asked to do, but also because it's the most visible way to "revalue" teaching (addressing Joe's point about the devaluation of teaching).
My point is, we're having a discussion about "is tenure good or bad," when in the real world any tenure reform would have to be part of a package deal. I have my opinions about relaxing tenure, but it only works if there is a comprehensive plan.
-- CeciliaPlaza - 12 Apr 2018 | | | |
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