A Little Bit About Tenure

Let me begin by saying that although I have taught in systems that offered tenure, I have never stayed in any one place long enough to be eligible for it.  So I am writing this as a chronically, if you will, non-tenured-but-not-unhappy teacher.

My husband and I were driving the other day and flipping among a few Sirius Satellite radio stations.  At one point we lingered on Fox News (if you have to criticize me, hey, at least I'm being honest here) and caught an interview with a gentleman from California.  The subject was teacher tenure. For the life of me I can't remember his name, or who the interviewer was, so forgive me for that.

The Fox interviewer seemed hung up on bad teachers who have tenure and are forever employed, and are hurting our students.  The gentleman from California tried in vain to explain that tenure does not mean that your job is guaranteed, but rather that you're entitled to due process.  Shame on the reporter, because she wouldn't listen to the man, and she was, dare I say it, quite wrong.

So, let me explain this:

ALL TENURE MEANS IS THAT YOUR EMPLOYER HAS TO HAVE CAUSE TO FIRE YOU, AND YOU ARE ENTITLED TO DUE PROCESS.  THIS IS IN CONTRAST TO EMPLOYMENT-AT-WILL, WHERE YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO KNOW WHY YOU ARE BEING FIRED, OR TO ANY APPEAL.

I have no idea why this is so difficult for everyone to understand, and I struggle with the idea that "tenured teachers are the root of all evil," as that particular Fox News interviewer would apparently have us believe.

So let's break this down.

First:  People think that tenure means you are guaranteed your job forever.  Please see the bold, above.  As far as I know, the only person on this earth who is guaranteed to hold his job 'til death is the Dalai Lama.  If you are a tenured teacher, that means that in order to fire you, the school system needs to show just cause, and you are entitled to due process.  In English, that simply means that you are entitled to know why you are being fired, and to some sort of an appeals process.  You still can be fired.

Second:  In reality, though, it is probably true that many teachers with tenure correctly consider themselves "unfire-able,"  not because they can't be fired, but because school systems won't/don't fire them.  Schools and administrators have been historically lax about starting the requisite paper trail to provide cause.  Yes, this is anecdotal evidence, but until the past few years, every administrator with whom I have discussed this issue had the attitude of "we know so-and-so could be better, but to really document it all would be so much work, it's not worth it."  So the lousy teacher who just so happens to have tenure, gets to keep at it.

Third:  There are many "offenses" which people would think count as cause, but which in reality are not.  A prime example of this, and something I've heard tossed about more and more lately, is the hypothetical teacher who chooses to serve none of his or her assigned duties.  Folks, unless this is a line-item in your contract, it's not a fire-able offense.  I worked in New England where every expectation was defined in our contract, and if it wasn't there, we couldn't be required to do it, and that was for a non-union position!  I am quite positive that unionized systems define job duties even more specifically.  I've also worked in Georgia and Alabama, where we had the catch-all on our contract, "and other duties as assigned," which I always found to be beyond b.s., and likely unenforceable.  Did they mean to tell me that if the principal told me I was suddenly to scrub the toilets every afternoon, I would have to do it?

Fourth:  Just because someone is tenured does not automatically make them a lousy teacher!  The news media seems to make this straight-line connection, and it's simply not correct.  Are there lousy tenured teachers?  Of course!  Are there lousy non-tenured teachers?  Yep!  And guess what, folks?  The non-tenured teachers get to keep changing systems -- they are still teaching, just the same as the tenured teachers!  It's not tenure that's the problem, it's the poor teachers.

Moral of the story: if you want to be able to fire tenured teachers, and you most certainly can, you need to change two things.
One -- Change the attitudes of administrators, so that documentation is not a nightmare, and the requisite paper trail is started early.  (In fairness, the paper trail aspect is starting to change, with our teacher accountability and documentation frenzy, administrators need to be able to point to teachers who don't pull their weight, and have evidence all along.  They shouldn't realize a problem and then need to begin compiling evidence from that point forward.)
Two -- If we think certain things, such as attending meetings, being part of committees, or serving duties, should count as "cause," we need to clearly define them in the job descriptions.