Why Tenure Matters, Part II

In my previous post on tenure rights, I tried to show some scenarios that would result in arbitrary dismissal of experienced teachers. Maybe they weren't the best examples, but basically my point was that hey, it could happen. And I tried to explain that it is much more difficult for teachers to move around when they are experienced because of the higher cost of experienced teachers which most districts aren't willing to pay when hiring. So losing a job is essentially losing a career for experienced teachers. They aren't going to catch on somewhere else and get a fresh start.

In this post I want to explode some myths about tenure. And I also want to look at some common arguments against tenure, as exemplified in the article below that I cut and pasted from Education Week (see the link at my sidebar; registration required.)

Myth #1. Tenure protects bad teachers. Wrong. No one should get tenure who is a bad teacher. No one has to give a teacher tenure. A teacher up for tenure can be non-renewed pretty easily. I've done it personally. It's not fun, but legally it's not a big deal. If the teacher isn't worthy, don't grant them tenure.

I've seen marginal teachers get tenure and improve. You can't expect it, but it happens. It's rare, however, for a good teacher to suddenly become a bad one. The idea that good teachers, once they get tenure, begin coasting, is just a myth.

Myth #2. You only have three years to see a person in action and then you give them a lifetime contract. This myth is propogated by the article below. And the author is referring to contractual language that grants tenure after two or three years. But there's a catch. In most places you have to have a Master's degree to get tenure, and it's pretty tough to get a Master's degree within three years of graduating from undergrad when teaching full time. I realize more teachers now are entering the field with Master's degrees (I did that 16 years ago, and it was unheard of, and I was strongly counseled against it), but it's still fairly rare for a teacher to go for tenure just three years into her career. If I could find statistics on it, I would bet that the great majority of teachers with tenure earned it between 5 and 10 years into their careers.

Myth #3. Tenured teachers are untouchable. This is one of the most persistent myths, but in fact tenured teachers have to be incompetent. What's incompetent? Bad. A bad teacher is an incompetent one. It's just much harder to document and prove. You have to know how to build your case. Most administrators are unable or unwilling to go through the difficult process of terminating a bad teacher.

The corollary to this is that many administrators, even if they don't feel they can get rid of a marginal tenured teacher, are unable to work with the teacher or attempt to change her methods.

The fact is, administrators have a great deal of power over teachers, even if they are tenured. They can transfer them, they can give them duties, they have lots of sticks and carrots they can use to influence a teacher's performance.

A few more thoughts:

One important change to tenure law that would help everyone would be to eliminate the requirement that teachers either be granted tenure or non-renewed. There ought to be a third option granted by law. As an administrator, I should be have the option of saying, "I don't think you are ready for tenure, but I also don't want to non-renew you. I think you have potential. Here's a contract for two more years and we'll reevaluate your status at the end of that contract." Right now, that's not an option.

Keep in mind also that principals and administrators often have high turnover rates, while teachers tend to be more stable. Teachers set up shop in the community. Principals and other administrators often see schools as rungs of a ladder. The first 8 years I taught I worked for four different principals. Career teachers are often the ones who bring stability to a district. They often get a bad rap for resisting change, but the other side of that coin is that they provide the continuity that makes parents and kids feel comfortable and secure in a school. Being resistant to the flavor of the month in education is not necessarily a bad thing.

In a comment to Part I on this topic, Buckblog reminded me of a point that I wanted to make on this topic. He wrote, "I'd suggest there would be less criticism of tenure if the teachers and the unions did a better job of policing their own." This is a common argument against tenure, that somehow the teachers should get rid of their own bad teachers. Do people who make this argument really think that administrators should give up their managerial role of evaluating teachers? The role of "policing" teachers should really be left to the administrators. That said, there are many districts that have experimented with peer review programs, in which master teachers take an active role in developing improvement plans for inexperienced or problem teachers. In fact, the ability of teachers to "police their own" really depends on the law and a district's negotiated agreement--without an agreement with the state or a local district, teachers and unions have no power to "police" their ranks. They don't have the power to revoke licensure, hire and fire, or evaluate teachers. So how are they supposed to "police their own"?

Finally, the suggestion in the article below that contract status be based on student performance is a really, really bad idea. There is no way you can have an equitable system based on student performance. It just can't happen. I would challenge anyone to show me a way that kind of a system could work. (In fairness to the author below, he does say that tenure should not be eliminated, just modified, a position which, as I said before, I agree with, given the conditions I've talked about.)

I would say to those who want to reform tenure rights, make some modest adjustments to ensure continued effort from career teachers, and focus on bringing active, long-term professional development to schools. Most professionals would welcome those things. But to put career teachers at the mercy of principals and superintendents on a revolving door in and out of the district does nothing to promote fairness or improve teaching. All it does is give more power to certain administrators who under the current system lack the courage or skill to make the tough calls.

Education Week article on Tenure Rights:

School accountability and high-stakes testing have changed the face of public education. They will soon change teacher and administrator tenure as well. With two-thirds of the states granting lifetime tenure (and more than half of them doing so after only two or three years of employment), the process is in danger of becoming an anachronism. This is an age, after all, when failing test scores can keep students from graduating and cause schools to be closed.

Simply put, employing schools need significantly more time to evaluate their new teachers. We will never improve our schools if we ignore the most important factor in the education equation, namely, teacher effectiveness. We can pay teachers more money, we can demand more content mastery or graduate degrees of newly certified teachers, but it’s the ability of the classroom teacher to reach his or her students that counts most.

Tenure shouldn’t be eliminated for teachers or administrators, but the probationary period leading to tenure must be lengthened significantly. As a profession, education is finally acknowledging that student learning is influenced more by teacher qualities (experience, educational credentials, certifications, licensure scores) and, even more so, by teacher effectiveness than by class size, per-pupil expenditure, and appearances. The Education Trust examined the issue of “do teachers matter?” and reported that students who performed the worst on state tests had the same set of teachers over a several-year period. Not surprisingly, the students who performed the best had also had the same set of (often different) teachers. So what explains the difference? What makes an effective teacher?

Until very recently, teaching and learning were measured solely through the subjective lens of the observer. The teacher’s own perception of her classroom performance, the supervisor’s classroom observation of the teacher with his class, and the parent’s comments of satisfaction with the teacher were the sum of our assessment of a teacher’s effectiveness. Today, because of the No Child Left Behind law’s requirement of yearly testing in grades 3-8 in math and reading, as well as the pervasive dissemination of student test scores (by school, district, state, and nation), we are looking at more-objective data—test scores. If students aren’t passing, does it matter if their teachers appear to be “good in the classroom”?

Only in the past few years have we begun to review student test scores as an element in the tenure decision. If all the subjective factors (classroom management, questioning techniques, homework procedures) feel right and a teacher’s students perform miserably on the year-end test for two consecutive years, do we grant or deny tenure? What if students do well one year and poorly the next? Most people would say we need more evidence. It’s unfair, both to the new teacher and to the employing community that will have that teacher for the next 30 years, to make an irreversible decision on such limited information. But we now have concrete information; test scores can’t be dismissed in this era of school accountability.

It takes excellent mentoring, supervision by knowledgeable professionals, trial and error, familiarity with diverse populations of students, preparation and revision of countless lesson plans, and experience in activities such as devising strategies for integrating technology and analyzing student test results to identify learning gaps, among other factors, for a newly minted college graduate to become an effective teacher.

Gaining these capabilities involves more art than science, and thus takes time. The skills of an excellent teacher cannot be learned and perfected in real classrooms in a period of two or three years.

The story is the same for school leaders. Research shows us that a school can’t succeed without an effective principal. Yet it takes at least a year for a new principal to know the school’s staff, students, and parents and to begin to evaluate the instructional needs of the school community. To implement specific, programmatic changes takes at least two additional years; evaluating the success of those changes requires another two or three years. An administrator should not receive tenure based on the introduction of creative programs, but rather on their success.

Tenure shouldn’t be eliminated for teachers or administrators, but the probationary period leading to tenure must be lengthened significantly. The reason for tenure’s being an integral part of education law still holds, especially in this day of politically charged issues such as the evolution vs. creationism debate. Tenure assures the educator’s right to free speech and protects against capricious dismissals. But we will never truly improve our education system if public policy requires us to rush to judgment on a decision as profound as who should be with our community’s children for the next 30 years.

If students aren't passing, does it matter if their teachers appear to be 'good in the classroom'?By saying to all educators that student results count, that students’ success will be a significant element in deciding whether or not they receive tenure, and that educators must prove their effectiveness over a period of years before this unique recognition is granted, we will be making a critical statement about our political will to improve schools.

Political leaders may find opposition to this idea from teachers’ and administrators’ unions—just ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. But only when the best, and most effective, teachers are with our children will American education improve.