Good News On The Education Front!

[PoliticalChic]

Perhaps the flickering flame that has been smoldering under the 'education industry,' the wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberalism, Inc., is finally producing some movement in the right direction!



In California, a suit against tenure, filed on behalf of children not getting their optimal education due to the immobility of senior teachers, may be a stake through the heart of tenure.
"With the help of Students Matter, nine California public school children filed the statewide lawsuit Vergara v. California against the State of California in May 2012 to strike down the laws handcuffing schools from doing what’s best for kids when it comes to teachers."
Vergara v. California Case Summary Students Matter

In NYC, which, I believe, is the largest education barrio in the nation, it seems a different, less drastic approach has been instituted.


1. "City teachers approved for tenure rose to 60% in 2014
Of the 4,662 teachers eligible for tenure in 2014, city officials approved 2,802. About 38% had their tenure decisions extended and 2% were denied outright.

2. Under state law, teachers who complete their probationary period — typically the first three years of teaching — are eligible to be granted tenure by the city."
City teachers tenure approvals rise to 60 in 2014 - NY Daily News



3. Before the cheering begins....the rate is actually slightly higher than last year:
"... up from 53% in 2013, Education Department officials said Friday."
Ibid.




4. On the other hand.....tenure used to be a rubber stamp:

"Tenure at the K-12 level is not earned, but given to nearly everyone. To receive tenure at the university level, professors must show contributions to their fields by publishing research. At the K-12 level, teachers only need to "stick around” for a short period of time to receive tenure. [30] A June 1, 2009 study by the New Teacher Project found that less than 1% of evaluated teachers were rated unsatisfactory. "
Teacher Tenure - ProCon.org




Interesting because a central theme of Liberalism is to never make value judgments about people, equivalency of every variety is acceptable....

...the trend toward actually judging teachers may presage a crack in that wall.


One can only hope.

 

[PoliticalChic]

There are those who see tenure as a good thing.....


5. "Prior to the introduction of teacher tenure, teachers were often fired for non-work related reasons. Teachers could be dismissed if a new political party took power or if a principal wanted to give jobs to his friends. Calls for special protections for teachers coincided with the women’s suffrage movement and labor struggles during the late 19th century.

The National Education Association issued a report in 1885 advocating for public school teachers to receive tenure to protect against political favoritism and discrimination based on gender and race. In 1886, Massachusetts became the first state to pass a pre-college tenure law. [1] When nearly 10,000 teachers arrived in Chicago for the 1887 NEA conference, teacher tenure was one of the main discussion topics.

In 1909, New Jersey passed the first comprehensive K-12 tenure law in the US. Proponents of the teacher tenure law in New Jersey argued that it would attract more qualified teachers and eliminate political favoritism, while opponents warned that tenure would make it more difficult to remove ineffective teachers."
Thomas A. Kersten, "Teacher Tenure: Illinois School Board Presidents' Perspectives and Suggestions for Improvement", Planning and Changing, Oct. 1, 2006


6. Before Massachusetts introduced teacher tenure in 1886, women were sometimes dismissed for getting married, becoming pregnant, wearing pants, or being out too late in the evenings."
Teacher Tenure - ProCon.org


7. "In a June 1, 2009 study by the New Teacher Project, 86% of school administrators said "they do not always pursue dismissal" of poorly performing teachers because of the costly and time consuming process."
Daniel Weisberg, Susan Sexton, Jennifer Mulher, David Keeling, "The Widget Effect: Our National Failure to Acknowledge and Act on Differences in Teacher Effectiveness,", The New Teacher Project website,
The Widget Effect TNTP June 1, 2009


8. "On June 28, 2010, New York City closed its "rubber rooms,” where approximately 600 tenured teachers "accused of incompetence and wrongdoing” received their full salaries to sit in a sparse room and do nothing."
Steven Brill, "The Rubber Room," New Yorker, Aug. 31, 2009
and
Jennifer Medina, "Last Day of 'Rubber Rooms' for Teachers," The New York Times - Breaking News World News Multimedia June 28, 2010

 

[DGS49]

The pity of it is that because the teachers' unions are so dead-set against teacher evaluations based on performance, they will not participate in any effort to devise a "methodology" to evaluate teachers' performance. And of course who would be better qualified to develop a functional evaluation system than an organization of thousands of teachers?

Tenure only makes sense if it can be granted only to the teachers who demonstrate that they deserve it.