Monday, February 13, 2012

Topic of the Week: Tenure

One of today's hot topics in education is teacher tenure. Tenure provides educators with a permanent teaching contract with the near-impossibility of being fired. Ideally, teachers granted tenure have displayed outstanding successes in teaching and a consistent passion and drive for their work; however, many argue that teachers in the "tenure-track" are no longer evaluated properly.

For this week's discussion, let's give our own opinions. While many argue that tenure offers much-needed job security, its opponents say that tenure makes it almost impossible to rid schools of poor teachers

To read more about teacher tenure as well as the opinions of education experts Geoffrey Canada and John Wilson, click here and here.

Should teachers have tenure?  


*We encourage you to not only share your own opinion, but to comment other participants' posts as well. This is a great way to engage in a discussion with your peers and gain invaluable insight on both sides of educational issues.
Finally, please remember to be respectful and engage in professional discussion when replying to the post of another.*

2 comments:

  1. Yes tenure has both its good and its bad effects. I remember in Edu 1000 Prof. Tracy showed us a video and one of the topics it mentioned was tenure and how hard it is to get rid of bad teachers. Instead of firing the teacher or them losing their license, they are either moved or placed in a room to grade tests. I think that the tenure process needs to be changed. It needs to be harder to earn and once earned it should not be a reason to relax. It should just mean that if something were to happen, the safety provided by tenure is there to provide support. Many teachers do see tenure as a way of guaranteeing a job, no matter how they are as teachers. I believe that the profession of being an educator is a constant learning process and if those who receive tenure, those that are supposed to be the experienced and best in their field, do not display that, then they do not deserve something that teachers strive for.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We agree that tenure is not a reason for teachers to relax. Your comment that teaching is a constant learning process is well said! It is a teacher's responsibility to not only teach his or her students, but to learn from the students as well. A teacher must regularly change teaching styles and adapt to new groups of students as time progresses and student populations change. Certainly, we can no longer teach students the way we did 10 years ago! Thus, teachers must be willing to learn and grow as educators. The lifelong learning process does not stop with tenure.

      Delete