Teacher Tenure Laws Challenged Across Several States
Challenges to teacher tenure laws have recently been underway across the nation in various states including Kansas, Minnesota, and New Jersey.
Source: procon.org
Teacher Tenure on Trial in California
Opening arguments began on Jan. 27, 2014 in Vergara v. California, a case brought by advocacy organization Students Matter and nine public school students alleging that teacher tenure violates the constitutional rights of students.
Students Matter, an advocacy organization founded by telecommunications entrepreneur David Welch in Nov. 2010 with the goal of “creating positive structural change in the California K-12 public education system,” helped nine students file the case against the state on May 14, 2012. The two largest teachers unions in California, the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers, chose to join the case as defendants on May 2, 2013.
The case challenges three aspects of California’s Education Code: 1) Laws that effectively guarantee all teachers tenure after an introductory period; 2) Laws that make it difficult to fire ineffective teachers; and 3) Laws that require school districts to make decisions about district-wide layoffs and subsequent reassignments based on teacher seniority instead of classroom performance.
Should teachers get tenure?
Teacher tenure is the increasingly controversial form of job protection that public school teachers in all states receive after 1-7 years on the job. As of 2008, 2.3 million teachers have tenure.
Proponents of tenure argue that it protects teachers from being fired for personal or political reasons, and prevents the firing of experienced teachers to hire less expensive new teachers. They contend that since school administrators grant tenure, neither teachers nor teacher unions should be unfairly blamed for problems with the tenure system.
Opponents of tenure argue that this job protection makes the removal of poorly performing teachers so difficult and costly that most schools end up retaining their bad teachers. They contend that tenure encourages complacency among teachers who do not fear losing their jobs, and that tenure is no longer needed given current laws against job discrimination.Read more…
