How does does Teacher tenure benefit the ~5,300,000 citizens of Minnesota? And in particular how does Teacher tenure help our children to succeed academically and otherwise?
I see how it increases costs, limits number of Teachers we can afford and protects questionable performers. (ie costs) However I need help with the benefit side of the analysis. Thoughts?
Parents United: Tenure Update
Teachers obviously benefit. They get ever-increasing salary for (potentially) ever-decreasing performance. You might think students benefit from having tenured-- i.e. experienced-- teachers in the classroom, and by not having these (rightfully) more well-paid but more productive teachers sacrificed to brutal cost-shedding administrators, but that is prevented by union seniority rules at present, and doesn't really occur except under really stupid management.
ReplyDeleteBesides, the main push in teacher employment has been to decrease class sizes by hiring more teachers, so the whole notion that we are letting teachers go based on anything other than the attempt to spend more money than needed on teachers is sort of silly. Teacher tenure doesn't prevent silliness in unionized education. It adds to it.
J. Ewing
John,
ReplyDeleteSo when you miss a day of work due to illness or whatever do they bring in a substitute project manager for the day to do your job?
Maybe schools should just run a revolving door of staff, keeping those who are lower on the pay scale, though that might not attract quality people to the profession, if one is concerned with the long view.
From my perspective job security in teaching (though I lack this as charter school teacher) is a benefit that offsets to some degree the lower than average pay teachers compared to others with a college degree.
Based on the experience of aquaintances trying to transition from teaching to something else private industry does not value the skills of teachers. Young people might not want to enter a profession in which they are easily replaced if they think there is a good chance they will lose their job at age 40.
Unfortunately, no subs for John... Computer and/or smart phone goes with me everywhere. Don't even ask where I am right now.
ReplyDeleteBenefit 1: Tenure may increase job security and offset lower wages, therefore encouraging more personnel to join profession.
Now that I am back on a computer, I guess my counterpoints / questions would be...
ReplyDeleteCould/would we pay more if the job security was less and therefore effectiveness was higher? (ie reduced waste)
Would job security actually be less for capable hard working Teachers? (ie Smart Mgrs keep Smart Employees, & Law protects older employees)
How many young Teachers get discouraged and quit each year because of the Last In First Out system? (ie really low wages & terrible security)
A side comment: I wonder how many absolutely gifted and driven potential Teachers are not entering the field because they are unwilling to wait 20 yrs for their compensation to get to a reasonable level? The current safe low risk/low reward system certainly would not have called to someone like me. Maybe just as well...
I forgot to address the Teacher quality thought...
ReplyDeleteThe way the free market should work is that Teacher quality will still be controlled by the current licensing, training and capability reqts. If you want to improve the quality, make the reqts more stringent.
Then as fewer people enter the Education field, the wages will need to be increased to attract more applicants.
If wages are low and the number of applicants per posting is high, that would imply we have too many Teachers chasing too few jobs. Though I keep hearing that there was supposed to be a Teacher shortage coming as the baby boomers retired. It will be interesting to see if wages increase if this happens.
Laurie,
By the way thanks for your comment, I am listening and considering what you said. I was wondering, how does employment, compensation, etc work at your charter? Are there more experienced Teachers or is it all younger low dollar Teachers? I know some Teachers that opt for lower compensation at Private schools in order to avoid all of Public school drama. Thoughts?
Tenure insulates teachers from political pressure, which is on the rise.
ReplyDelete--Hiram
If "Politics" is the voice of the people... And the School Administrators/Boards are tasked with interpretting and implementing the Voice. Is this a cost or a benefit? What is your rationale?
ReplyDeleteHow does Teachers being insulated from the politics help our kids succeed? Thoughts?
Well, politics is the voice of some people, I suppose. Politically, I am not averse to a lot of this stuff. It's a political winner, and on this as a lot of issues, Education Minnesota has been too inflexible. But I don't think these so-called reform measures will make teachers better. They simply are simply easy solutions people resort to, in preference to really coming to grips with difficult issues. I think older teachers are better than younger teachers, and a process that prefers younger teacher to older teachers isn't going to help our schools much.
ReplyDeleteThe problems our schools have don't have much to do with the quality of teachers. They have to do with deeper problems with our society. Those things to which we have correlations but to which we can't or won't prove causation.
--Hiram
I am not sure I agree that "older teachers are better than younger teachers". At least not consistently enough to justify a curve like this one. (LINK)
ReplyDeleteI am assuming after the first five years the marginal improvement decreases pretty quickly. Unless that person is truly interested in making effectiveness improvements.
Still a bit fuzzy on the benefit of insulation.
It's a simple question really, with a simple answer (at least where the original question is concerned). First a clarification. It is important to establish the fact that "tenure" does not mean a teacher cannot be laid-off or terminated for poor performance. Tenure is no more than a legal commitment (set by the state and negotiated union contracts) to procedural due process, ensuring notice and providing a hearing for generally accepted reasons for termination, such as incompetency, insubordination, and immorality.
ReplyDeleteTenure’s primary purpose is economic job security, tied to the otherwise uncompetitive pay in comparison to other professions; however, tenure is not a lifetime guarantee. It DOES mean that the teacher has completed enough successful time as a teacher that they are no longer under "probation" (which requires less criteria and documentation to remove the teacher for poor performance, layoffs, etc.)
So a teacher that has been rewarded for being a successful teacher for the prescribed amount of time is going to be a more secure, happier teacher, in theory. This should be a positive impact on the quality and atmosphere of the tenured teacher's classroom. Prior to the introduction of standards, which has led teachers to have to "teach to the standardized tests" instead of teach the way they (as they are the teaching experts) have been educated and trained to do, tenure also meant that you had observed the teacher enough and respected and trusted him/her to teach the way they felt best. It meant that they had graduated from "trainee" to "professional" back when we treated teachers as professionals.
Like any professional, teachers want to be given the credit by administrators, parents, students, and so-called experts that they deserve, and some freedom to teach the way they feel best. Giving them a tenure status attempts (or attempted) to do that. That benefits everyone, because a happy and secure teacher free to practice the art of teaching in meeting the academic criteria is a great teacher!
After watching my District and a few very specific examples, I have to disagree... "Tenure" definitely means that it is nearly impossible to get rid of a teacher for poor performance.
ReplyDeleteThough my company certainly wants engaged, challenged and satisfied employees, I am pretty sure that "secure and happy" can be taken too far and have disasterous consequences. Especially when it means that students don't get the education they deserve.
Here are the ones I have recorded, did I miss any? Are there any more?
Benefit 1: Tenure may increase job security and offset lower wages, therefore encouraging more personnel to join profession. (Laurie)
Benefit 2: Insulates Teachers from Politics. (Hiram)
Benefit 3: A secure happy Teacher has a positive impact on the classroom. (Shawn)
I think your reason number one and your reason number three are confused. The principal component of job satisfaction is respect for the individual's contribution to the effort. In a union shop this respect is almost completely lacking, IMHO, because a true professional would contract individually with the employer based on their merit, not on an "every employee is exactly the same according to the contract" mentality. Teachers should not be protected by arbitrary rules and contracts when they perform poorly and refuse to perform better.
ReplyDeleteIt is job satisfaction that will offset the lower pay, not "security." Security simply tends to stifle initiative and reduces job satisfaction because initiative itself is discouraged in the union environment. What is really odd, again in my humble opinion, is that without the union contract and all of the meddling, teachers could make a lot more money, and be worth it.
J. Ewing