The Non-Issue of Teacher Tenure (response to comment on News-Leader blog)
Tenure is most assuredly not a system that was created to ensure that the weakest teachers are guaranteed lifetime employment. Tenure was created to ensure academic freedom and to protect teachers from capricious firings. If a school district can’t figure out how to get rid of a weak teacher during their first five years of probationary employment, they have nowhere to affix blame but to their own flawed system of teacher evaluation.
There has been no clamoring to get rid of tenure by the Missouri School Board Association nor from the Missouri Association of School Administrators – the people who supervise teachers and are accountable for the performance of local school districts. They know that teachers with tenure maintain the academic integrity to teach all the students and assign fair and accurate grades based strictly on student performance – not based on threats to their job because a particular student is a star athlete or the son/daughter of a school board member - or a state legislator, for that matter. They also know that good teachers become great teachers with years of experience and support.
Tenure is simply not an issue in our district, nor is it a major issue anywhere in the state. It has been trumped up by certain legislators who make a living carrying the water for larger political interests in our state - that happen to fund their campaigns rather handsomely. They have become very creative in their attempts to undermine state and local governments and local control of school districts. They fabricate issues regarding public schools because they seek to privatize them, plain and simple.
It would be great if our state legislature would actually try to tackle real issues rather than continue to fabricate them out of thin air for political advantage.
The Non-Issue of Teacher Tenure (response to comment on News-Leader blog)
Tenure is most assuredly not a system that was created to ensure that the weakest teachers are guaranteed lifetime employment. Tenure was created to ensure academic freedom and to protect teachers from capricious firings. If a school district can’t figure out how to get rid of a weak teacher during their first five years of probationary employment, they have nowhere to affix blame but to their own flawed system of teacher evaluation.
There has been no clamoring to get rid of tenure by the Missouri School Board Association nor from the Missouri Association of School Administrators – the people who supervise teachers and are accountable for the performance of local school districts. They know that teachers with tenure maintain the academic integrity to teach all the students and assign fair and accurate grades based strictly on student performance – not based on threats to their job because a particular student is a star athlete or the son/daughter of a school board member - or a state legislator, for that matter. They also know that good teachers become great teachers with years of experience and support.
Tenure is simply not an issue in our district, nor is it a major issue anywhere in the state. It has been trumped up by certain legislators who make a living carrying the water for larger political interests in our state - that happen to fund their campaigns rather handsomely. They have become very creative in their attempts to undermine state and local governments and local control of school districts. They fabricate issues regarding public schools because they seek to privatize them, plain and simple.
It would be great if our state legislature would actually try to tackle real issues rather than continue to fabricate them out of thin air for political advantage.