<p>Sam- what does this article about a sick teacher have to do with tenure? Did tenure protect him? When they found out about his crime and he was arrested was he put on leave without pay. NJ has strong tenure laws but he would be out on leave without pay once charged here. Once found guilty he would be terminated.</p>
<p>That article is not about tenure it is about a weak administration that made a deal rather than take a stand. Tenure would not have protected him and unless management signed the worst contract in history he could have been suspended without pay because of the criminal charges. All they had to do was hold a Loudermill hearing.</p>
<p>He was suspended without pay and would have been officially terminated at his hearing. Management should not have settled they took the easy way out.</p>
<p>Something protected him, tenure, bad management by principals and superintendents over the years…if the first claim of sexual abuse came in the 90’s. while I would say mismanagement, it is a more invasive, systemwide collapse, IMO. Things actually have changed for the better BECAUSE of is case, because it brought attention to some HR practices that needed to be addressed and corrected by California law. </p>
<p>This is not an isolated case - there are many teachers not doing an adequate job in their job, but once hired, it’s awfully tough to let them go. In California, building a case can take years and an iron willed principal. I know of one from personal experience that started teaching when I was a high school student, and it took twenty years and a whole other generation of students before she was finally let go. Why? I have no idea. I know of another right now fighting her dismissal, allegedly on medical leave - her kids simply do not have adequate skills to move to the next course in sequence. It is a dumping ground - if your kid ends up in her class, good luck ever mastering that math skill. </p>
<p>NJ may be different than Califormia in terms of their tenure system. The fact that they paid this guy off to go away even though he was a predator is a problem. Other things about the case are troubling - many adults who also were predators and one was convicted as recently as 2005. Live scan fingerprints are done for every new hire in California for school districts. So why wasn’t this a red flag for this instructional aide?</p>
<p>They call it “Dance of the Lemons” - teachers and administrators who are paid while on administrative leave (sometimes two years or longer), and move from school to school after complaints surface. </p>
<p>Again that is bad management not a tenure issue. Tenure says that you need to provide due process and prove your case you can not just terminate.</p>
<p>Administrators are not doing their job but blaming tenure. It is nonsense.</p>
<p>The rules are you are on paid leave until the Loudermill hearing. There is no reason for the Loudermill to take months.</p>
<p>If an administrator can not document that a teacher was let go for a valid reason how is the school system going to defend themselves against lawsuits when they terminate anyone in a protected class? If a middle aged male with seniority is terminated but the cute young teacher that is seen “hanging out” with the principal keeps her job do you think there should be documentation why the senior was terminated?</p>
<p>That is part of the problem, too. Administrators are doing the same shuffle, ie, Delores Street School. That principal was moved to several sites and was a problem at each. This happens, more frequently in a big district like LAUSD than smaller ones. </p>
<p>Of course there should be documentation about why a teacher is fired. In that link from ten years ago, there is actually a system that changed fir review because the union protected teachers were uncomfortable in how they were being reviewed.</p>
<p>Texas is an at will employment State. However, it seems like there have been some people around for years abusing the system who are not let go in school districts due to legal concerns. There is one teacher in a local school people seem to be aware of who is around for a couple of months at the beginning, disappears for the rest of the year while the class is taught by substitute. This person has done it for at least for 3 or more years. Only thing that would make sense is medical leave. However, the pattern indicates abuse.</p>
<p>Everything you post comes back to management not doing their job and you see the solution for that of taking away due process for all teachers?</p>
<p>If you have a weak teacher you need to be in their classroom monitoring them. You will get concrete examples of weaknesses. Prior to even doing that you have 3 or 4 years to terminate them at will. Tenure is a system it is not the problem.</p>
<p>I am personally torn on tenure in public schools. I understand and strongly support the idea at the collegiate level, but I have yet to see an actual benefit given from tenure at the k-12 level. And without actual benefit I cannot see a reason for implementing a system that does have the inevitable effect of retaining bad teachers.</p>
<p>So what would the system be to terminate a teacher? Would the administrator have to document poor perfromance, would the teacher have the ability to challenge the administrators findings?</p>
<p>I think the system would be the same as in any other profession. Would it always be fair? Of course not - it often isn’t! But retaining someone who is willfully or unavoidably inadequate is not fair either!</p>
<p>Tenure at the college level accepts the costs because the importance of academic freedom is high enough to warrant it. I submit that K-12 teachers (of which my wife was once one) do not have that need. While the merits of various methods and concepts of childhood education could certainly be argued, I do not think entrenching the two sides and making the children the battleground is enough to justify tenure.</p>
<p>cosmicfish do you think the termination process is the same in all professions. Do you think J & J terminates people the same way the local hardware store does? All large companies require some type of documentation prior to dismissal. That is what tenure is the requirement to document. </p>
<p>Why do you think supporting tenure means keeping someone that is shown to be inadequate? Why do you all let high paid administrators skate on doing their job?</p>
<p>I taught public school at the elementary level many years ago. My principal was a complete drama queen. She relished pitting one group of teachers against another. Teachers who tried to hold themselves above her pettiness and gossip were treated poorly and often punished with stricter scrutiny and trumped up complaints. She was the kind of principal from whom teachers needed protection. It was a non-union state, however, so the good teachers put in for transfers rather than risk getting fired for standing up to her. I taught learning disabled children and we were in short demand at the time so she left me alone for the most part. I was one of the few teachers in the school who got along with everyone because she wasn’t lying about me to other teachers. The school had terrible turnover because of her. The school was also in a very challenging area and was at the bottom of the list with regard to where a principal wanted to be. She got away with a lot from the administration because of that. She was less threatened by weak, less creative teachers so they were the ones likely to stay. She ran most of the good ones away. Maybe a union would have helped.</p>
I think that there are a lot of similarities between the professions that do not use a tenure system. That is to say, it can be done for administrative reasons (lay-off, most commonly) or for performance, and that the level of documentation depends principally on the cost of said documentation vs the probability of being sued. So yes, J&J and the local hardware store, while having some minor variations in procedure, still are both able to fire someone who is underperforming (in their opinion, based on some criteria).</p>
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Tenure at most schools makes teachers immune to firing over mere “bad performance”, it requires outright insubordination or other flagrant violation - often pretty severe. The whole point of tenure is to make it far, far harder to fire someone than in a “regular” work environment.</p>
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Because that is a common effect.</p>
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I don’t, but I am not sure exactly what you are trying to say.</p>