What is teacher tenure: "Teacher tenure, sometimes referred to as career status, provides job security for teachers who have successfully completed a probationary period. The purpose of tenure is to protect outstanding teachers from being fired for non-educational issues including personal beliefs or personality conflicts with administrators, school board members, or any other authority figure. ... Teachers who receive tenure have a higher level of job security than a non-tenured teacher has. Tenured teachers have certain guaranteed rights that protect them from losing their jobs for unsubstantiated reasons." Source Question is for anyone who's ever had a teacher, lecturer or professor! Or is an educator. Or a parent of a school-going child. What do you think about teachers or professors getting tenure? Is it a needed feature given how many other laws are in place protecting against unfair firing? Is the freedom that the teachers get worth the bad apples who get the job-security, and who almost cannot be removed? At what levels is teacher tenure good or bad: college/university, high school, middle & elementary school? . .
From what I've read so far and also based on experience, teacher tenure is not worth it or needed at the elementary and middle school levels for sure. Teachers get tenure simply for doing the bare minimum during the 1-3 years probationary period. There are no stringent requirements unlike for profs. In college and beyond, maybe tenure is needed to give the professors freedom to teach without fear of offending students etc easily and risking getting sued in our sue at the drop of a hat culture. At the high school level, I am not so sure. Teachers do cover controversial topics with students who are on the brink of adulthood, so maybe they need some freedom to teach without fear of offending parents who disagree with opinions expressed in class by students or teacher?
Hmmm ... what, no takers? OK, I don't want to see the thread stillborn, so I'll bite! This is a tricky issue, but on the whole I think some form of tenure is a good thing. We need spheres of life in which someone can speak their mind without fear of losing their livelihood - sort of like supreme court justices being appointed for life. This can be debated; however recent trends in society and intellectual life argue for preserving tenure - trends such as the corporatization of the university, the transfer of power to 'professional' managers in lieu of academic self governance, the rise of think-tanks dedicated to the production and dissemination of agenda-driven, predefined pseudo-research, the contamination of intellectual life by media manipulation and the production, by public relations firms, of sponsored fake research, the main aim of which is to generate an appearance of controversy ("Doubt is our major product!"), all point to a need for strong critique and open, vigorous debate. I could go on, but here are some examples of what I mean: (1) The modern, most effective version of agenda driven pseudo-research in a drive to influence public opinion and policy was invented by the tobacco lobby. This approach has now become ubiquitous, the latest efforts affecting policy decisions on global warming. Homework-1: Merchants of Doubt. Homework-2: Thank You for Smoking (A light, enjoyable diversion. ) (2) The corporatization of the university has led to a sharp rise in the number of non-academic managers and ancillary personnel (diversity officers, fundraisers, vice-provosts, deans and deanlets devoted to this, that and the other). This is accompanied by a corresponding drop in academic faculty and a rise in non-tenured adjuncts. From the managerial perspective, academic departments are now revenue generating / cost centers and ...... OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, don't get me started on this!!! The short version is that the dominance of corporate value systems in the university and in public life has led to an erosion of intellectual values. The abolition of tenure feeds into the twisted ambitions of the soul destroying administrative parasites and the obfuscators. Homework-1: The Fall of the Faculty. Homework-2: The Last Professors. (3) There are policy issues of great importance that need independent voices both for and against. Here is one example of an academic critic of the SDI and missile defense. Homework-1: Going Postol homework-2: Postol vs the Pentagon OK, this is already longer than what I had intended to say when I started writing, so I will stop with one last note and perhaps others can take over.
Since you brought up school, consider this: A head-teacher in the UK, who criticised multiculturalism in education and argued for an immersion in English over multicultural ghettoization for immigrant children, was driven out of his job. His essay, first published in the conservative Salisbury Review, got him branded as a right-wing, racist fanatic. Homework-1: You can read the original essay from 1984 (ironic, eh?) here: Education and Race. Homework-2: A posthumous reassessment from 2014: Was the 1980s Bradford headteacher who criticised multiculturalism right? Homework-3: The Man Who Predicted the Race Riots. There are some arguments against tenure. Especially strong are those that criticise the process itself, as one that selects for homogeneity. However, on the whole, I fear that the galloping corporatization of the university, the trend toward commercialization of academic research (Bayh-Dole Act anyone?), the drop in state support and the rise of an administrative class whose priorities appear to be anything but education and research will do far greater damage to students, citizens and perhaps the planet. Tenure is certainly not a panacea; one could argue about who ought to have it and how it should be awarded - but it may be the one last chance of real resistance.
There are three books on the list, so you won't be done by the weekend. If you have to choose, I say go for "Merchants of Doubt". It's not very well written, sadly - they should have collaborated with a professional writer - but it's well worth the time spent.
Soka, I didn't abandon the thread... Looks like when I start a thread, it ends up being real life applicable. A kid I've known for some years is having a tough time this week with a tenured teacher who has a well-known sadistic streak. I am not sure if my getting in touch with the kid's parents (not Indian) is going to help or harm. The parents, I guess, are the kind who say teacher is teacher. Anyway, this bright, struggling kid makes me just want to run away from the topic of teachers for a bit.
Document.... document every incident with dates/the kids involved . Send a written letter/email. No it wont help a whole lot with tenured teacher but it will take the edge off once u start to make noise.
