How Does Teacher Tenure and Seniority Help Students?

[Toro]

A California court struck down teacher tenure and seniority provisions. The unions, as expected, are protesting.

Teachers unions are fighting back against a California ruling that gutted two things they hold sacred: tenure laws and seniority provisions. But they face an uphill battle to reshape their image as opponents—and even some allies—say they are standing in the way of needed improvements in education. ...

Teachers union critics say the tenure and seniority laws that were hobbled by the June ruling protect longtime educators who are ineffective while more proficient ones with less experience face layoffs first. ...

The developments have left the nation's two largest teachers unions in a quandary: how to alter the perception that they are obstacles to change while holding on to principles such as tenure that their members demand.

The unions used their recent national conventions to respond and have notched up the rhetoric. The National Education Association, the largest teachers union at about three million members, elected a new president who called certain teacher-performance metrics such as test scores "the mark of the devil."

The American Federation of Teachers, the second-biggest union at about 1.6 million members, backs a new group, Democrats for Public Education, which advocates for the union's causes. "Sadly, what has changed is that rather than helping teachers help kids, some…are suing to take away the voices of teachers," said AFT President Randi Weingarten. ...

In the California case, a state judge in June struck down certain protections for teachers, including tenure after about two years on the job and seniority protections in layoffs. He found in the case, Vergara v. California, that the measures can entrench unqualified teachers, preventing minority and low-income students from receiving the equitable public education required by the state's constitution.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/teachers-unions-under-fire-1409874404?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories

I certainly appreciate the work teachers do, and I have no problems with giving teachers protections against rash terminations, but I'm not sure how teacher tenure and seniority rules help kids.

 

[Mac1958]

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Looking forward to this.

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[Disir]

A California court struck down teacher tenure and seniority provisions. The unions, as expected, are protesting.

Teachers unions are fighting back against a California ruling that gutted two things they hold sacred: tenure laws and seniority provisions. But they face an uphill battle to reshape their image as opponents—and even some allies—say they are standing in the way of needed improvements in education. ...

Teachers union critics say the tenure and seniority laws that were hobbled by the June ruling protect longtime educators who are ineffective while more proficient ones with less experience face layoffs first. ...

The developments have left the nation's two largest teachers unions in a quandary: how to alter the perception that they are obstacles to change while holding on to principles such as tenure that their members demand.

The unions used their recent national conventions to respond and have notched up the rhetoric. The National Education Association, the largest teachers union at about three million members, elected a new president who called certain teacher-performance metrics such as test scores "the mark of the devil."

The American Federation of Teachers, the second-biggest union at about 1.6 million members, backs a new group, Democrats for Public Education, which advocates for the union's causes. "Sadly, what has changed is that rather than helping teachers help kids, some…are suing to take away the voices of teachers," said AFT President Randi Weingarten. ...

In the California case, a state judge in June struck down certain protections for teachers, including tenure after about two years on the job and seniority protections in layoffs. He found in the case, Vergara v. California, that the measures can entrench unqualified teachers, preventing minority and low-income students from receiving the equitable public education required by the state's constitution.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/teachers-unions-under-fire-1409874404?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories

I certainly appreciate the work teachers do, and I have no problems with giving teachers protections against rash terminations, but I'm not sure how teacher tenure and seniority rules help kids.

It's pretty simple. It's experience. Teaching is not a McDonalds job or even an assembly line job. Kids are not cheeseburgers.

 

[Mac1958]

It's pretty simple. It's experience. Teaching is not a McDonalds job or even an assembly line job. Kids are not cheeseburgers.

I'm far more interested in quality and accountability.

And much of their "experience" is a result of being protected by tenure.

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[NYcarbineer]

It helps students because it makes the profession of teaching more attractive to people considering a career, and therefore attracts better quality people to the profession.

You get what you pay for.

 

[JoeB131]

It's pretty simple. It's experience. Teaching is not a McDonalds job or even an assembly line job. Kids are not cheeseburgers.

I'm far more interested in quality and accountability.

And much of their "experience" is a result of being protected by tenure.

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THe problem isn't that we are keeping teachers.

The problem is we aren't keeping enough of them.

50% of new teachers quit teaching within the first five years.

Now, yeah, tenure was probably not the best way to protect teachers from management that would happily screw over an experienced teacher in the name of looking like they are doing something.

 

[Mac1958]

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"Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym."

Woody Allen

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[JoeB131]

A California court struck down teacher tenure and seniority provisions. The unions, as expected, are protesting.


I certainly appreciate the work teachers do, and I have no problems with giving teachers protections against rash terminations, but I'm not sure how teacher tenure and seniority rules help kids.

Keeps administrators from using downsizing to get rid of good teachers for office politics reasons.

Let's be honest. There are teachers who need to be fired because they are incompetent. But administrators need to make those cases. Not, "Well, I'll just wait for budget cuts to get rid of him."

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Not 100% sure how tenure works in the face of an incompetant teacher. Presumedly, if you earned tenure at all you're pretty good. Whether you remain that good thereafter is a worthy question though. And if you start skating by you should be fired regardless. Inclined to think it's another non-problem in search of a solution like voter fraud.

 

[Mac1958]

Not 100% sure how tenure works in the face of an incompetant teacher. Presumedly, if you earned tenure at all you're pretty good. Whether you remain that good thereafter is a worthy question though. And if you start skating by you should be fired regardless. Inclined to think it's another non-problem in search of a solution like voter fraud.

First of all, earning tenure means nothing more than you didn't get fired. So there's no way of knowing if the teacher is good.

Second, once a teacher is protected by tenure, standards and expectations are effectively dropped and the teacher can pretty much do whatever they want. Zero accountability is not a good idea for anyone, ever.

Tenure isn't about quality, it's about protection.

 

[JoeB131]

Not 100% sure how tenure works in the face of an incompetant teacher. Presumedly, if you earned tenure at all you're pretty good. Whether you remain that good thereafter is a worthy question though. And if you start skating by you should be fired regardless. Inclined to think it's another non-problem in search of a solution like voter fraud.

First of all, earning tenure means nothing more than you didn't get fired. So there's no way of knowing if the teacher is good.

Second, once a teacher is protected by tenure, standards and expectations are effectively dropped and the teacher can pretty much do whatever they want. Zero accountability is not a good idea for anyone, ever.

Tenure isn't about quality, it's about protection.

but there is a process to remove an incompetent teacher, so I'm not seeing what your complaint here is, exactly.

The real problem is, administrators don't want to do the hard work of documenting a teacher's poor performance, usually because if someone advocates for the teacher, more than likely, it's the administrator who is probably not up to his or her job.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Tenure isn't the problem. Even back in my days at public school the method of teaching was ineffectual. Even moreso today. If information isn't being presented the same way recreational information is via multimedia, kids aren't going to absorb it. Books? What's a book? That isn't how people learna nymore. Until educaiton catches up with the 21st century, you're only gonna to get crappy results using old crappy methods.

Question whether we even need teachers per se'. Someone to set the stage for what's being learned, show ya how to turn on the machine like is about it.

Have learned much more on my own than I did in school. When learning is compulsory you rebel, when it's optional you'll eat a library for lunch. Instead of this flat everyone elarns the same crap model we've been using to spectacularly ineffectual results, we need to face reality and only teach the basics: reading, writing, arithmetic. Kids with aptitudes for more academia move to that, others move to job training in whatever they're into. Not everyone's destined to be a scientist or other hard academic. Sooner we accept that and implement it the better we'll do on the global stage. Just embarassing ourselves right now.

 

[Theowl32]

It adds nothing to the students. This is about unions. The same thing with the fast food people demanding $15/hr. That is driven by the SEIU and the protesters (most of them) do not even work in the fast food industry, regardless of how they are dressed.

The dumb dumb liberals are too stupid to give an adequate answer, and they certainly do not give two flying fucks if some teacher is a quality teacher or not.

Can you believe the leftist teachers actually teach kids that man made global warming is a fact?

 

[Toro]

Keeps administrators from using downsizing to get rid of good teachers for office politics reasons.

Let's be honest. There are teachers who need to be fired because they are incompetent. But administrators need to make those cases. Not, "Well, I'll just wait for budget cuts to get rid of him."

For your argument to be valid, you'd have to demonstrate that good teachers are fired for office politics at a higher rate than bad teachers. There's no evidence of this. You'd also have to demonstrate that not firing good teachers for office politics outweighs retaining bad teachers because they're ensconced in the union.

In FL, schools get more money for doing well on tests. The incentive is to keep good teachers and get rid of bad ones.

 

[JoeB131]

It adds nothing to the students. This is about unions. The same thing with the fast food people demanding $15/hr. That is driven by the SEIU and the protesters (most of them) do not even work in the fast food industry, regardless of how they are dressed.

The dumb dumb liberals are too stupid to give an adequate answer, and they certainly do not give two flying fucks if some teacher is a quality teacher or not.

Can you believe the leftist teachers actually teach kids that man made global warming is a fact?

As opposed to right wing teachers who don't talk bout evolution because it contradicts the Bronze age Book of Fairy Tales?

 

[JoeB131]

Keeps administrators from using downsizing to get rid of good teachers for office politics reasons.

Let's be honest. There are teachers who need to be fired because they are incompetent. But administrators need to make those cases. Not, "Well, I'll just wait for budget cuts to get rid of him."

For your argument to be valid, you'd have to demonstrate that good teachers are fired for office politics at a higher rate than bad teachers. There's no evidence of this.

Yeah, because you have union protections that keep that from happening. It's like saying, "prove that lock on your door keeps people from stealing your widescreen." Well. I locked my door, no one stole my widescreen. Duh!

[
In FL, schools get more money for doing well on tests. The incentive is to keep good teachers and get rid of bad ones.

No, it isn't.

Testing is probably the worst thing that happened to teaching.

True story. I was talking to my then 14 year old niece about Columbus and why he made his voyage. And, no, she was never taught any of the details because "it wasn't on the test."

Testing just mean the teachers teach to the test.

But even if you accept the tests are measuring anything other than the ability of testing companies to scam school districts out of money, then it would strike me the schools that do poorly are in need of more money, not the schools that do well.

 

[Ravi]

Keeps administrators from using downsizing to get rid of good teachers for office politics reasons.

Let's be honest. There are teachers who need to be fired because they are incompetent. But administrators need to make those cases. Not, "Well, I'll just wait for budget cuts to get rid of him."

For your argument to be valid, you'd have to demonstrate that good teachers are fired for office politics at a higher rate than bad teachers. There's no evidence of this. You'd also have to demonstrate that not firing good teachers for office politics outweighs retaining bad teachers because they're ensconced in the union.

In FL, schools get more money for doing well on tests. The incentive is to keep good teachers and get rid of bad ones.

Tests for the most part that distract from real learning. But if performance on tests is your goal, shouldn't the under performing schools get more money to hire more teachers?

 

[Ravi]

It helps students because it makes the profession of teaching more attractive to people considering a career, and therefore attracts better quality people to the profession.

You get what you pay for.

^ here is the OP's answer. I honestly don't know why anyone would want to be a teacher in today's climate.

 

[MeBelle]

A California court struck down teacher tenure and seniority provisions. The unions, as expected, are protesting.

Teachers unions are fighting back against a California ruling that gutted two things they hold sacred: tenure laws and seniority provisions. But they face an uphill battle to reshape their image as opponents—and even some allies—say they are standing in the way of needed improvements in education. ...

Teachers union critics say the tenure and seniority laws that were hobbled by the June ruling protect longtime educators who are ineffective while more proficient ones with less experience face layoffs first. ...

The developments have left the nation's two largest teachers unions in a quandary: how to alter the perception that they are obstacles to change while holding on to principles such as tenure that their members demand.

The unions used their recent national conventions to respond and have notched up the rhetoric. The National Education Association, the largest teachers union at about three million members, elected a new president who called certain teacher-performance metrics such as test scores "the mark of the devil."

The American Federation of Teachers, the second-biggest union at about 1.6 million members, backs a new group, Democrats for Public Education, which advocates for the union's causes. "Sadly, what has changed is that rather than helping teachers help kids, some…are suing to take away the voices of teachers," said AFT President Randi Weingarten. ...

In the California case, a state judge in June struck down certain protections for teachers, including tenure after about two years on the job and seniority protections in layoffs. He found in the case, Vergara v. California, that the measures can entrench unqualified teachers, preventing minority and low-income students from receiving the equitable public education required by the state's constitution.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/teachers-unions-under-fire-1409874404?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories

I certainly appreciate the work teachers do, and I have no problems with giving teachers protections against rash terminations, but I'm not sure how teacher tenure and seniority rules help kids.

Tenure does not help students.

In my district, it took more then five years to remove an ineffective teacher.

She was qualified to teach the subject.

Her approach to teaching was she 'favored' students who were excited about her class, (aprox 1/3), 'helped' students who were interested in the subject, failed to help the remaining 1/3. Calsters is what keeps 'them' going.

 

[candycorn]

A California court struck down teacher tenure and seniority provisions. The unions, as expected, are protesting.

Teachers unions are fighting back against a California ruling that gutted two things they hold sacred: tenure laws and seniority provisions. But they face an uphill battle to reshape their image as opponents—and even some allies—say they are standing in the way of needed improvements in education. ...

Teachers union critics say the tenure and seniority laws that were hobbled by the June ruling protect longtime educators who are ineffective while more proficient ones with less experience face layoffs first. ...

The developments have left the nation's two largest teachers unions in a quandary: how to alter the perception that they are obstacles to change while holding on to principles such as tenure that their members demand.

The unions used their recent national conventions to respond and have notched up the rhetoric. The National Education Association, the largest teachers union at about three million members, elected a new president who called certain teacher-performance metrics such as test scores "the mark of the devil."

The American Federation of Teachers, the second-biggest union at about 1.6 million members, backs a new group, Democrats for Public Education, which advocates for the union's causes. "Sadly, what has changed is that rather than helping teachers help kids, some…are suing to take away the voices of teachers," said AFT President Randi Weingarten. ...

In the California case, a state judge in June struck down certain protections for teachers, including tenure after about two years on the job and seniority protections in layoffs. He found in the case, Vergara v. California, that the measures can entrench unqualified teachers, preventing minority and low-income students from receiving the equitable public education required by the state's constitution.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/teachers-unions-under-fire-1409874404?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories

I certainly appreciate the work teachers do, and I have no problems with giving teachers protections against rash terminations, but I'm not sure how teacher tenure and seniority rules help kids.

I'm not sure it helps them either. Unions have one job, to protect their members. Everything else is secondary.