In 2005, Harry Drendall, a retired Easton Area music teacher, told me about being a student in a small Luzerne County school district in the 1930s when the school board met one night and fired five teachers.
He said most of the firings were to open up jobs for the offspring of prominent local families, and one teacher – a much-loved coach – was fired because he was Catholic. Drendall and others organized a town meeting and got the majority of the board to rehire the teachers.
Drendall died in 2010 at age 89; with the passing of his generation, it’s easy to forget the reasons teacher tenure became law in the first place.
Surely we can all agree that a terrible teacher can do a lot of damage in a short time – leaving students unprepared and soured on a subject. And the process to get rid of one with tenure can be time-consuming, requiring evaluations, improvement plans and lots of documentation.
But I have mixed feelings about tenure and here’s one of my fears: the day it’s abolished would be the last day any school board member’s kid ever got a grade below a B.
A Bethlehem teacher told me she feared that without tenure teachers would be afraid to say or do anything that was the least bit controversial. “I don’t think it would make them better teachers,” she said. “They’d be more concerned with saving their jobs than doing their jobs.”
East Penn School Board President Charles Ballard said that it should probably be easier to fire a lousy teacher but agreed that scrapping tenure could have a chilling effect on the classroom. A group that wanted to roll back taxes could win school board seats and get rid of the more experienced, higher paid educators. Others with religious or social agendas could threaten to fire educators for teaching certain books or lessons.
Tenure critics often point out that currently few teachers are fired, but the low rate doesn’t tell the whole story. Board members and teachers say many others are “counseled out” of the profession by administrators and colleagues.
A middle school teacher told me some new teachers coming from other professions are lured by perks, such as summers off, and aren’t prepared for how hard teaching can be. “We had one guy come in from the business world,” she said. “He didn’t last the marking period. They just don’t realize how much work it is to keep 13- and 14-year-old kids engaged.”
About a third of new teachers leave the profession within five years, according to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future; in urban districts, it’s about half.
So here’s the question: Is there a way to streamline the process of getting rid of bad teachers without scrapping the protections for good ones?
In a future column, I’ll talk about the state’s efforts to revamp teacher evaluations.
- John G. Lewis
Allan, education is not a business for individual teachers. Children and their parents bring all of their dreams, fears, passions, and prejudices with them to the classroom. Misunderstandings are inevitable. Once, when I taught fourth grade, I had a parent tell anyone who would listen that my classroom was a "wasteland." Finally she said to me, "I think that my son likes you better than he likes me." Still, while it is possible to actively remove or "counsel" the very worst teachers out of the profession, I do see that tenure protects the mediocre. the final question in the article is an excellent one, and one that I believe most teachers would like to see explored.
Yes, in extreme cases, there should be a way to vote the professor out. Perhaps a 90% vote of all the tenured professors; or a 100% vote inside the restricted college. I would probably prefer a University wide vote, but I am not sure. In your case, Mary Anne, it is hard for me to say, without knowing more. But why am I so ardent in this position? Because free inquiry into truth must be maintained. This principle holds for all grades, and schools of any type; but more so, and more strictly, for Colleges and Universities. Take the famous case of Intelligent Design, one we all know well, especially here at Bethlehem. Dr. Michael Behe has done some outstanding work (at Lehigh), and while we may disagree or agree with his biological, and philosophical, positions, one cannot deny the quality of his work, his sincerety, or his ethical position. And these can, and do, get involved in academic discussions (please excuse my defense). I believe there may be only two grounds for dismissal. 1. That his/her views have become so warped, obsure or frankly ridiculous that there are no grounds for them whatsoever. The case of someone going "mad"; and I guess this can happen. [As I believe it actually did happen to I. Kant, unfortunately, at the very end of his life.] The course taken here would be early retirement, obviously; Secondly, 2. Ethically improper behaviour. - John G. Lewis
Educators deserve protection from unjustified dismissal, based on ideology or economics. If that protection comes in the form of well-constructed legislation requiring just cause for dismissal, then so be it. I'm not the least bit interested in protecting bad teachers' jobs, and neither are most good teachers.
I would also note that parents need to be involved in the lives of their children and tat includes getting to the school board meetings, joining and attending PTA meetings and dropping into the classrooms where their child is being taught. And don't forget to find out what the administrators think education should be for your children. You might be surprised.
Yes, there would be all sorts of reasons for firings, some good, some not justifiable. But the great teachers will be recognized and employed, as many great people have been fired only to get a better job the next time. The lousy teachers won't be ... or so we can hope. As for ESU hiring faculty who don't speak English ... did you know all of the state schools are "rewarded" for hiring Asian's under how funding is determined by the state. The phrase is ... performance indicators. Talk to your state representatives about this ... and tell your child to select his/her classes better. At the college level the students can select their teachers and there is plenty of information as to who is good and who isn't. K-12 children don't have that luxury.
What you are talking about, I think, is merit pay for teaching. That would be a good thing. But that will mean breaking up the union and that can be done by getting the school board to no longer collect union dues from all of the teachers. Unfortunately the teacher unions have gone the way of the private unions--what was once necessary has now turnied into a monster.
1) Tenure aand union contracts are just as much golden handcuffs as they are golden handshakes. The best performers are kept frozen in place as well just as the worst are. 2) Only the shortsighted would fire the best - and of course they would fire the worst. If one of the best is fired, then (s)he woukld have no problem getting another job.
I see it more as the forces of the market, as I see merit pay just being an additional layer on the the current status quo ... and yes, I agree with you that the unions would stand in the way of this of market forces establishing salaries, as well as merit pay, or any form of compensation that took the power out of their, union hands. My grand father's life was made better by the unions, and it enabled him to feed his family of 5! Thanks to unions, we all have benefits with maternity/paternity leave, health care benefits, fair work place treatment, and vacation times (even in times of a stinky economy). For that, I will be forever grateful. However, there is an old Japanese work place saying that roughly translates into the nail that rises above the others will be beaten down. When I think of unions and education ... that has been my experience ... those teachers who rise above the others get beaten down. The power in the classroom rests with the teacher ... we need policies and practices that demonstrate our understanding of just that. Tenure, in my experience and opinion, at the K - 12 level isn't going to help us assure great teachers. At the college level, Professor Behe is a perfect example of why tenure is required, lest the intellectual bullies push down unique ideas and creative research, though lousy teaching should still be grounds for dismissal even with tenure.
I agree with you observation concerning your grandfather's time in the union when it was a great organization. In graduate school I did an extensive paper on Samuel Gompers the Founder and President of the AF of L a great organization as Gompers was a great leader of the organization he founded. But your are correct as to what the union has become. Most importantly they have not only become vicious organizations supporting everything from the prevailing wage, as found in the Davis-Bacon act to the NEA supporting abortion. All of this has done one thing, driven costs for just about everything through the roof. We really need to be a Right to Work State. Where the union use to assist, it now destroys and all you have to do is look at what is standing where Bethlehem Steel use to stand. Then look at the Rubber Room for bad teachers in NY. Get the movie "Waiting for Superman" now at NetFlix and ask you neighbors to come and see it.