Tenure

Lately, the whole issue of teacher tenure has been twisted beyond recognition. And by "lately," I mean the past 30 years or so. Allow me to put it to you in a different way.

I graduated College in 1992. I then sought a teaching job. For the first 10 years of my career, I jumped from job to job; part time to leave replacement; temporary sub to full time. I then landed in the position I'm currently in, and spent the first three years of this position without tenure. That's 13 years during which time I could have been removed from my position for literally ANY reason at all.

Think back on the days depicted in films like Les Miserables, when Fantine was fired for having a child out of wedlock, and for not returning the foreman's sexual advances. Or Far and Away, when Joseph and Shannon are fired from their jobs for insulting the boss. I know those are works of fiction, but that was the work environment in the days before Unions.

I was fired once for not saying "Hi" to the superintendent in the hallway. A friend of mine was let go because the "students liked her too much." I was let go from another job for expressing my relief about not having to go to the middle school that day. LITERALLY. ANY. REASON. There's nothing the union can do about it either.

Tenure is not freedom from getting fired. It means that a teacher is granted the right to be fired ONLY through due process. It means the end of the days when you can be let go for any reason at all. In the early days of the teacher's union, female teachers were let go for getting married. Or getting pregnant. Being the wrong religion. John Thomas Scopes was fired for teaching a scientific theory not commonly held by the people in the town.

Tenure guarantees an employee their right to due process. If a tenured teacher is let go, it must go to a hearing where evidence of that teacher's breach of contract, incompetence, or negligence must be shown. It must also be shown that said teacher had been spoken to about their deficiencies, and attempts had been made to intervene, which were unsuccessful. Consider your job. Wouldn't you want the same rights with your boss?

Also consider that so called "bad teachers;" the ones that "can't be fired," and who are "the reason students aren't achieving;" are supposedly so terrible that their mere existence in that classroom is holding the students back. If only they could be fired and replaced with "good" teachers, students would do better in school. A teacher works nontenured in a school for THREE YEARS before being granted tenure. Three. Years. Ask yourself this question: How is a teacher who is THAT incompetent, and who can be fired for literally ANY reason, WITHOUT due process, allowed to work in a school for THREE YEARS?

The war on teachers that is being waged politically is not about improving education. It's about administrators wanting the right to fire teachers indiscriminately. Indeed, many employers long for those days when there weren't so many rights and privileges that they were required to provide for their workers. It would be wonderful for them if these unions and workers' rights just went away. Then we could go back to the work environment of the 1800's.