Teacher Tenure

[ericadawn16]

I hate the current backlash against teacher tenure.

I agree that tenure should only be offered after 3-5 years of successful teaching, but it should be offered. Tenure is a teacher's only recourse against a curriculum that seeks to punish them at every turn. A teacher should be encouraged to use any means necessary to help a student not only learn but learn to love learning. Tenure is usally the only way this can actually happen without the teacher being immediately fired.

Also, be really careful about hand sanitizer wipe cans where you just pull the next one. I got my thumb stuck in one at work and that thing was like a more violent form of Chinese Finger Cuffs...or just like a scene from Saw according to a coworker. My thumb was black and blue and bleeding afterwards, but I'm glad I didn't lose it.

Comments

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

I agree that tenure should only be offered after 3-5 years of successful teaching, but it should be offered.

You said it.

[porridgebird.livejournal.com]

Tenure is a teacher's only recourse against a curriculum that seeks to punish them at every turn. A teacher should be encouraged to use any means necessary to help a student not only learn but learn to love learning. Tenure is usally the only way this can actually happen without the teacher being immediately fired.

I haven't seen this backlash (only because I'm not as up on things as I could be) but I agree so hard I want to give you a standing ovation!!

[allisnow.livejournal.com]

As a teacher, I would agree... but I would also say that the process to dismiss outright bad teachers needs to be streamlined. Otherwise you end up with the rubber rooms of LAUSD and students losing valuable educational time.

I don't think curricula itself is punishing (although talk to me after my district finishes implementing CCSS); it's more of the pressure coming from the district to get results at any cost. The district office pressures the principal, the principal pressures the teachers, and we try not to pressure the kids.

[dm12.livejournal.com]

I agree... there needs to be balance between protecting really good teachers from the whims of uncooperative students (and their parents and pressured administration) and having the flexibility to let go really awful teachers who are just taking up space and not doing what's best for the students.

I know of cases where the union and tenure protected a good teacher who was doing his absolute best, trying to work with a student and the parents to get material from the student that he could actually grade (type it, do a tape or video, anything other than hand writing because it was totally illegible). The student and parents would have none of that, and the teacher ended up giving the student "Incomplete" along with all the other teachers. It wasn't just one teacher. Parents pressured admin, admin pressured the teachers, all but the one caved and passed the student. The one said he'd be doing a disservice to the student. Parents wanted teacher fired. In this case, the union did its job and protected an excellent teacher, who is still having a wonderful career and doing right by his students.

For every one of those cases out there, there are others where lousy teachers are being protected. It almost takes actual physical abuse of students to get these teachers fired. This is not sustainable.

[psyko-kittie.livejournal.com]

I'm not completely against teacher tenure, but I do see the issue because a teacher can be amazing those first few years and then after they get tenure, they could possibly lose their drive for teaching, thus becoming a bad teacher. THEN (in some cases) you throw in teacher unions that basically tie the hands of the administrations when they try to clean up the schools and get better teachers, they can't.

So I guess, I wouldn't have such a problem with tenure if teacher unions weren't such a force against a school board's administration and they looked at the what was best for the students and not the teachers.

[i-llbedammned.livejournal.com]

Tenure is a good thing overall. It is necessary to teach the things that actually matter, especially if the parents/religious organizations don't want their kids learning the things you want to teach.