<p>…Because the only people in favor of tenure are the teachers. Ask the parents in the district if they would like to see the elimination of tenure and there is a good chance that the majority would be in favor of such a move. It’ll never happen because of the power of the teacher’s union.</p>
<p>“Regarding Post 21: I appreciate your sincerity, I do. Unfortunately, though, the actual experiments that have been done wherein outstandingly qualified & committed teachers have been the exclusive staff within a deprived economic environment, have resulted in very little long-term gains.”</p>
<p>Exactly correct. Unfortunately from what I have seen, the ability of a teacher to teach is irrelevant when the class consists of students behaving as animals because that’s their upbringing. There isn’t an opportunity to teach when the teacher is fighting off parents threatening their lives, and worrying about children who are abused at home thereby having to spend their time in meetings with DCF.</p>
<p>For 125K/year you can get teachers much better than average. Of course, the question is do all students need teachers this good?</p>
<p>If you’re paying a teacher $60K, could you just take the extra and provide parent education courses?</p>
<p>"If you’re paying a teacher $60K, could you just take the extra and provide parent education courses? "</p>
<p>A far better option!</p>
<p>“ its primary purpose is to protect competent teachers from arbitrary non-renewal of contract for reasons unrelated to the educational process-- personal beliefs, personality conflicts with administrators or school board members”
Doesn’t that happen in every other workplace environment? In my town, the teacher union is sacred. In the current economic crunch, every other union in town - police, fire, health, administrative - were all asked to cut. Teacher union was not even approached!</p>
<p>Hey, guys, I’m a parent, too. That’s why I’m here. But I’ve always believed in teacher tenure, way before I became a teacher (only 10 years ago, I’m a late starter). But, again, there is good and bad in everything.</p>
<p>nysmile, many parents are not familiar with the workings of the contract (although it is public information and is available for review) or the internal workings of the school. They don’t know the teachers’ details of employment, their credentials, their classroom management, their knowledge of curriculum, their professional education and curriculum development, their ability to teach with differentiation or their method and style of teaching. The parents rely on the school’s administration to judge this. The administration usually has three years to figure out if the teacher in question is a fit with the school or not. It is only then that the teacher is offered tenure. </p>
<p>Again, tenure is not a free pass to do whatever we want. We have a contract to follow. Both teachers and administration gain by a contract. Parents do have a huge control over this: they and the other residents of the district vote on the school budget and for the school board members, who are the negotiators of the contract.</p>
<p>Yes, ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, I agree that it is tough to be a good teacher and be low in seniority. It’s the trade-off. But if you are a good teacher, you will have good references. You will be hired, and the school (if it’s a good one) will do what they can to keep you, whether it be though long-term substitute teaching, or a part-time position. You will come out on top. As in any job, word gets around.</p>
<p>Interesting thread …</p>
<p>Being a teacher is a calling. At the secondary school level it is about liking to work with kids. At the collegiate level it is about being an expert in your field and wanting to teach and/or do research. If you want to see what makes a professor in an Ivy League institution tick watch the Frontline documentary about Andrew Wiles and his proof of Fermat’s last theorem. If you want to see a movie about why teachers don’t teach in the inner cities watch Hoop Dreams.</p>
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<p>Indeed.</p>
<p>And all the fiscal studies, wherein a State and/or district has put in extreme amounts of money in the attempt to upgrade achievement & motivation of students without educated parents, have demonstrated that miniscule or absent improvement was the result.</p>
<p>To put it a different way, locations in which the school population has changed from children of parent-educated to parent-noneducated (in overwhelming numbers) have resulted in a change from middling-performing schools to abysmally performing schools. And yet the district and the state react by pouring even more $ into student effort alone, which perpetuates the inefficiency of that even increased dollar.</p>
<p>As far as tenure is concerned, there is an issue in terms of burnout with regards to older teachers. In difficult environments, teachers who have taught in schools that have seen gigantic negative developments in the school over the years and are in situations where teaching is secondary get burned out. They can bring the morale of the whole school down. Administrators have little recourse in these situations or in many situations with nonperforming teachers because of tenure. Unless the teacher is trying to transfer out of the school and has this negative reputation, they can stay where they are until retirement with no consequences.</p>
<p>Yes, DocT, and 50% of new teachers leave the profession in the first three years. It’s a tough career. </p>
<p>We can condemn the burned-out teacher, or we can offer them help. Burnout is due to many things, but I think teacher burnout can be helped by continuing education for the teachers themselves. As a parent, my hope is that the administration would recognize teacher burnout, and offer (or, better yet, require) time for professional conferences, additional certification or other continuing education. As a teacher, I make sure to do this whenever possible. I’m not burned out yet!</p>
<p>But are you 2 years from retirement?</p>
<p>No, but, if I were, should I be fired?</p>
<p>Where I live, they do require teachers, para-professionals, the secretaries, and even the custodians to attend professional growth days. Continuing education is also required by all teachers hired after a certain date (I honestly don’t remember the specific date). All teachers have to acquire their master’s degree within a certain timeframe. This isn’t an issue of a lack of continuing education. It’s an issue of “as long as I do what I have to do to get tenure, I’ll be set for life” attitude. </p>
<p>Here’s an example of what happened this week at the local Board Meeting. A tenured teacher who happens to be a very vocal member of the union was caught stealing money from an extracurricular club’s fundraising account. Do you know what her punishment was? She will no longer be allowed to work any extracurriculars. That’s it!!! You can’t even fire a teacher for stealing. </p>
<p>Tenure is outdated and needs to go.</p>
<p>Yes I know of similar situations. The working stiffs on regular jobs when they are underperforming or ruining morale find themselves at the top of the layoff list. What’s more important helping a company stay profitable or molding children’s minds?</p>
<p>It may be too difficult to fire a teacher with tenure, but the idea of tenure itself is not the problem. Employers who want to save money have an incentive to fire older teachers to replace them with cheaper ones. In the business sector, where the profit margin is paramount, this may make some sense, horrible as it is for dedicated employees getting laid off in their 40s and 50s. In public education, it would be depriving students of some of the best teachers. In addition, given teachers’ modest earning potential, the tradeoff of job security and medical benefits is the only thing that keeps a lot of teachers in the profession.</p>
<p>As for how effective this New York plan will be - while it is true that parents have a huge influence, you are never going to get me to believe that good teachers don’t make a difference.</p>
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<p>Take a look at homeschoolers. They do a perfectly fine job without any teachers at all.</p>
<p>I think DocT is right because I’ve seen it. I went to a private liberal arts college and one of my professors was a few years from retirement and sitting on his laurels. It was pretty obvious to me he hadn’t read the assigned readings for class, I’m sure he had read them at some point but not recently. He assigned grades by what the student had earned the previous semester when a different professor was teaching the class. I know because when my grade was so low I went to ask him why. He admitted to me what he was doing but he had copied my grade wrong so he raised it to what I had earned the previous semester. I’m sure he was a good teacher at one point but when I had him he was just taking advantage of a system that couldn’t get rid of him.</p>
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<p>Of course you can. They just chose not to. That’s your school board, not tenure.</p>
<p>nysmile, I can understand your frustration if this is a common occurrence in your district. But is this an exception, or the rule? Are there more good teachers or bad teachers in your district? Don’t let a few bad apples spoil the whole barrel.</p>
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<p>How so?</p>
<p>Really, how many people do you think would go through all of the education requirements, public scrutiny and historically mediocre pay (compared with other equally trained and educated professionals) to be teachers if they didn’t have some job security and benefits? Even if they felt “the calling”?</p>
<p>My wife was a teacher for greater than 20 years and is now a principal. Most of our friends are teachers or administrators from wealthy towns and incredibly poor cities so I’ve seen and heard the whole range of issues confronting teachers. A good teacher in a wealthy town with parents that care about education will make a difference. In inner cities, where many if not most students have learning disabilities or behavioral issues, a 125k teacher won’t make any difference. Basically the teacher is spending all their time keeping the kids from killing each other. Most on CC don’t have a clue as to what’s going on. Even those of you who grew up in inner cities don’t have a clue as things have gotten radically worse in the last ten - fifteen years and its accelerating. There are more kids whose parents are in jail if they even know who their father is and they are being brought up in unbelievably horrific environments. As has been pointed out, when you have parents who don’t care, who tell their kids not to listen or do what teachers are telling them, what do you think will be the result. Forget about the educational aspects of this discussion and the learning that is suppose to be going on, the next generation of jail meat is being raised.</p>